Medicine: At Ease!

Generals may run the army, but the authority felt by the harried recruit is the rasping voice of the sergeant. Like many another veteran who has heard that voice too often, Dr. Burgess L. Gordon, Philadelphia chest specialist and onetime army colonel, is convinced that sergeants are really bad medicine.

The command, "Suck in your gut!" Dr. Gordon told the International Congress of Chest Diseases in Rio de Janeiro, may make a chubby draftee look more soldierly, but it may also damage his health. Rigid military posture prevents a man from using his lungs properly. And faulty breathing can cause discomfort over the heart, upset digestion, bring on insomnia and depression. A moderate paunch. Dr. Gordon said, might better be left to its own devices. Military or not, "the important asset of the firm, rounded abdomen is its capacity to support the diaphragm within the effective range of expiration and inspiration."

In a brief bow to military tradition, the doctor conceded that a naturally flat, muscular stomach is still the best of soldierly equipment. And the fellow with a "relaxed, obese, pendulous formation" should do something about it. Let the drill sergeants work on him.