The decision of the surgeon general to make special provision for the care and study of chronic arthritis in the Army, has permitted activities in this connection on a scale larger than has been possible in this country since the Civil War, or than seems likely to be possible again. The advisability of such provision was indicated by several factors. Statistics available through the courtesy of Col. A. G. Love, of the Sick and Wounded Division, U. S. Army, Washington, D. C., based on data available up to Jan. 1, 1918, indicated that for an army of four million men, for one year, there could be expected an incidence of upward of thirty thousand cases of chronic arthritis, excluding those of a tuberculous or a Neisserian nature. The very limited degree to which our troops had participated in active warfare at the time of compiling the above data suggested that