Harvard's Hygiene Department is growing at an alarming rate, and residents in nearby buildings may take warning. Latest of the annexations is two-thirds of Big Tree, former abode of the now financially embattled Dramatic Club.

Fifty years ago there was one office for University hygiene and one doctor, Dr. Bailey. In 1902 Stillman Infirmary was opened, with Dr. Bailey also in charge of that. he continued as head of Stillman until 1924, although during the interim there were three heads of Hygiene. First was Dr. Nichols, Boston surgeon, who first saw the need of physical care for athletes and established the football doctor.

The Henry K. Oliver Professorship foundation put the Hygiene Department on a formal basis in 1915, with Dr. Roger I. Lee, present member of the Corporation, as the first holder of the chair. He was the first to have several assistants, and he it was who made physical education compulsory for Freshmen and started routine physical examinations. Offices of the department were then in Sever Hall, but with the appointment of Dr. Alfred Worcester in 1924, Wadsworth House became the department's headquarters, and two branch offices were set up. Dr. Worcester inaugurated such basic operations of the department as the Employees' Clinic, as well as the Dental and Eye Clinics.

In 1932 the burning of the Spee Club occasioned the Hygiene Department's removal to its present location, formally that of the Club.

In the few years that Dr. Bock has been in office the work of the Department has kept up its increase until it is now undoubtedly the finest organization of its kind of any University in the country. Unification of all parts of the department, including the athletic, and beginning of complete cataloguing of diagnoses--these are only two of the most important of Dr. Bock's administrative reforms. No less than thirty-one doctors are now on the staff. Harvard is fortunate to have its health in such hands.