Eighty years ago if a student collapsed in his room he could lie there and die before the University took any official notice of his plight. President Eliot's benevolence towards his undergraduates in instituting the elective program did not extend to providing for their health.

But today a University-wide hygiene program cares for all the student's physical and mental ills, makes sure he doesn't succumb to food poisoning, and has embarked on extensive research into preventive medicine. Five selfless and foresighted men get partial credit for the phenomenal rise of this much-needed department. But the large part of its development was spontaneous, created by the increasing needs of the Harvard community. An enlarged student body, a new type of student, and the pressures of society which the University began to reflect brought the Hygiene Department to its present state.

Despite its numerous personnel and extensive facilities, Hygiene still has big problems. Like a growing boy bursting through the seat of too-tight trousers, Hygiene must get some new clothes to function adequately. Stillman Infirmary is ancient, outmoded and inconvenient. The Hygiene building itself is bulging with a pot-pourri of clinics, laboratories, and offices that crowd in on each other with abandon.

At one time the department's physical set-up was more than adequate. Now, according to Arlie V. Bock, Henry K. Oliver Professor of Hygiene, the only feasible solution would be to rip down Stillman and construct a combination infirmary and health center. His proposed site is between Dunster and Holyoke on the ground now taken up by Cronin's, Arthur Parker's, Cahaly's, and a parking lot.

Bock's chances of getting his building are up to a Corporation committee headed by former Corporation member and public health authority Henry F. Shattuck. The committee, however, is keeping mum on its findings and its report on the University's entire health organization will not be ready for some time.

Sensible Five

The five men who acted as society's agents in bringing Hygiene to its presets prominence were Bock, Henry K. Oliver, Marshall H. Bailey, Roger I. Lee, and Alfred Worcester.

When Oliver was an undergraduate during the 1870's he writhed at the health ignorance of both the students and the administration and vowed to someday donate funds for a professorship of Hygiene.

The Henry K. Oliver Professorship was finally established in 1920.

Bailey had become Harvard's first medical advisor, in 1897. He badgered alumni and the Administration for an infirmary and got it in 1902. For most of the next quarter century he was the school's only physician, performing hundreds of successful operations under primitive conditions and getting little thanks for his efforts.

Lee organized the Hygiene department in 1914, was the first Oliver Professor, and started a series of undergraduate courses on health information. Worcester, went him one better when he became Oliver Professor in '25, by holding small nightly classes on sex problems in student's rooms. He also began to develop a program of psychiatric aid and founded a clinic for employees.

Bock took over in 1935. He completely reorganized the department, developed an invaluable liaison with several Boston hospitals, started intensive research into preventive medicine and human development, and is now stuck with the major problem of trying to run an expanding department under continually stifling conditions.

Health Inevitable

Even though a few individuals did a lion's share of the work the changing striation of the university community was the main cause of the improvement Bock claims. A close look at the facts show him to be correct.

A century ago there was really no pressing need for a University sponsored health program. Most of the student body came from well-to do eastern fantails and had personal physicians. It is interesting to note that when the University finally appointed a "Medical Visitor" in 1823 he was instructed.