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[NOV. 21, 1942

SELECTION OF ARMY PERSONNEL:DEVELOPMENT OF THE DSP

CHARLES S. MYERS, M D CAMB, F R S

THE Directorate of Selection of Personnel was

instituted in the British Army in the early summer of1941, under the immediate control of the Adjutant-General. Its work had been foreshadowed about a yearbefore, when the Army Council decided to introduceselection tests into units receiving intakes of recruits.This initial phase was entrusted to the director of militarytraining, who appointed as his adviser a civilian (lateraided by 3 assistants) to devise and to arrange for theapplication of a 20 min. test in the various trainingregiments for artillery, engineers, ASC, armoured corps,infantry, &c., throughout the country. Separate, butsimilar, arrangements were also in force for the testing ofrecruits in training regiments for anti-aircraft duties.One.great disadvantage of this scheme was the length oftime needed to transfer an unsuitably allocated recruitfrom one arm of the Service to another and to procure thedischarge of a recruit found uhfit, owing to lack ofintelligence or mental instability, for any kind of Armywork. In contrast to the practice obtaining in the Navyand in the Royal Air Force, it had been laid down byParliament that no man could be deemed enlisted untilhe had been posted by the Ministry of Labour to onearm of the Service (and to its training regiment), afterhis attendance at one of that Ministry’s recruitingcentres. The DSP was provided with a staff of adminis-trative and technically qualified men and women ofmilitary rank to conduct its work.

Its institution followed the receipt by the War Office of amemorandum on the selection and allocation of personnelprepared by one of the command psychiatrists of the Armymedical services, and of a report from a committee of threepsychologists appointed to advise him by the Adjutant-General. Both the memo and the report had urged that thenew directorate be established ; that a non-verbal test ofintelligence be given to every recruit on his medical examina-tion at the recruiting centres ; that mobilisation depots beestablished throughout the country, to which recruits shouldfirst be sent after their attendance at the recruiting centres,and at which a more detailed psychological and psychiatricexamination could be carried out before their allocation to anyarm of the Service ; that a permanent staff of non-com-missioned officers be provided in the new directorate to carryout the routine application of the necessary tests; and thatthe directorate should be in the closest possible relation notonly with the directorate of the Army medical services(concerned with the problems of Army health), but also withthe directorates of recruiting and mobilisation and of militarytraining (concerned with the problems of Army personnel).

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’The first work of the DSP was to select NCOs suitablefor the routine work of applying selection tests. Mostof those chosen had been teachers in civil life and weretrained by a staff of commissioned officers who werequalified and experienced in vocational psychology.The next step was to introduce a well-tried non-verbaltest of intelligence at the recruiting centres. ByJanuary, 1942, 85% of all intakes were receiving thistest in a shortened form ; and by March every recruitfor the Army (save in Northern Ireland), man or woman,was being thus tested. A card was prepared for eachrecruit on which, all information about him that relatedto personnel problems was entered, and the Hollerithsystem was adopted for future analysis of the data thusrecorded. A " job analysis " of the numerous occupa-tions in the Army was also begun, the special mental andphysical qualities being systematically ascertained whichwere required by each.Towards the end of 1941, an experiment was begun of

using air extended selection procedure in trainingregiments. Here men underwent tests which assessedmainly clerical, mechanical and signalling aptitudes,and also took a verbal test of intelligence. The recruitsfilled up a form giving their past educational and otherhistories, interests and hobbies ; and they were sym-pathetically interviewed by commissioned (usuallyregimental) officers who had been already trained for this

important work. Recruits of undesirably low intelligenceor of doubtfully adequate mental stability were referredby these interviewing officers to the local Army psychia-trist. The job analysis of Army occupations made itpossible to recommend each recruit, thus tested, inter-viewed, and considered in the light of his past educationand employment and of his present interests and hobbies,for suitable employment in his arm. Potential " trades-men " and men clearly better suited to other arms wereable to be transferred early in their Army careers.

This small experiment proved so encouraging that thework was gradually expanded. It was succeeded inMay, 1942, by a small try out of the present generalservice procedure in 10 units. The decision was nowmade to allocate all recruits at the recruiting centres to aGeneral Service corps, and to establish primary trainingcentres throughout the country to which they would bedirectly sent before allocation to any arm of the Service.These important changes came into force in July.Many additional officers, commissioned and - non-commissioned, were needed by the rapidly expandingDSP. The non-verbal test of intelligence was still givenat the recruiting centres, in order that units linked tothose arms which required the personnel of highestintelligence should have a selected intake and so reducetroop movements when they were posted. Soon after,command personnel selection officers, each providedwith NCO and clerical assistance, were appointed forlocal supervisory duty.

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In the selection of officers-another branch of theDSP’s work-the psychiatrists have played a moredominant r6le than the psychologists. For here thereis less need of the discovery of appropriate mentalaptitudes. Apart from adequate intelligence, the’essential desiderata for a good officer are qualities ofcharacter and temperament, constituting a suitablepersonality. The vocational psychologist has alwaysregarded tests of personality as far less reliable than thoseof aptitude. He has depended rather on the interviewfor the assessment of such characteristics as honesty,industry, cooperativeness and sociability. Moreover,slight degrees of mental instability or other quasi-psychopathic tendencies are much less important among" other ranks " than among officers. In the summer of1941, a War Office selection board (WOSB) was experi-mentally set up to improve the methods of assessingofficer-candidates and so to reduce the numbers of menrejected from officer cadet training units with consequentwaste of time, effort and expense. At this unit, duringtheir two or three days’ stay, they were confronted bymilitary testing officers with professional and othersituations in which they had opportunities of displayingtheir possession or their lack of initiative, ingenuity,capacity for leadership and courage. They were alsosubjected to psychological tests and7to various psychiatricobservations, many of them initially of a tentative,experimental character. But such success was achieved,particularly by the situation tests and by the interviewswith the psychiatrists, that in the following springWOSBs were established in every command throughoutthe country. Their work is largely clinical ; psychiatrists,psychologists, and military testing officers live with thecandidates during their stay in the unit ; they discusstheir independently formed verdicts in the presence of thepresident of the board who regards them as his technicaladvisers in determining the acceptability of each officer-candidate and his suitability for some particular arm ofthe Service.

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The director of the DSP, a professional soldier, has tobe in intimate touch with those formulating the ever-changing requirements of the Army. Though seldomgiven sufficient notice to allow of really thoroughpreparation, he has had to produce adequate numbers ofthe best-suited men and women needed in the variousarms of the Service, and to select and train an ever-increasing staff. The DSP has received the invariablesupport and sympathy of the present Adjutant-General.It has had to spend much time in devising or adaptingtests so that they are better suited to the Army’s needsthan any hitherto employed in civil life for vocationalguidance and selection. Some of those suggested have

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been adopted ; others (e.g., tests for drivers and gun-layers) have been rejected. The value of these tests hadto be experimentally determined within the Army beforethey could be applied on a wide scale. Their correlationswith other tests already in use has needed calculation ;" factor analysis " has also usually been carried out.From the outset the DSP has established close contact

with the corresponding but considerably older depart-ment in the American Army, which has generously sentto our War Office full information of its experience andmethods. Similar assistance has been received fromthose psychologists carrying out corresponding work forthe Admiralty and the Royal Air Force. The relationsof the DSP towards the newly formed directorate ofpsychiatry within the Army medical services havethroughout been cordial. The Army psychiatrists havecooperated in all the primary training centres, in theWOSBs, and in field units. The consultant psychiatrist

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or his director, or both, attend the meetings of theadvisory committee with the War Office staff of the DSP.The psychologist depends on the psychiatrist for thepsychopathological examination of men who throughdeficient intelligence or mental instability need specialplacing in the Army or discharge. In return, thepsychologist informs the psychiatrist of the scores

obtained from the intelligence test, and possibly willhelp to detect psychopathic conditions by the responsesmade to different sections of this test. Regular con-ferences are held at the War Office between the DSPheadquarters staff and the advisory committee, the

members of which have assisted also in conductingseveral investigations and in reporting on the directorate’swork at various training centres. A conference withcivilian psychologists, mostly in charge of universitypsychological laboratories throughout the country, hasalso been held, at which various offers of help werereceived and considered. Some offered statistical help,others the free use of their laboratories for research.The problem -of selecting additional officers for the ATSwas effected -by liaison with the psychologists at Cam-bridge engaged upon the selection of specialists for anti-aircraft units. Contact was also established with theMedical Research Counéil, one of whose research workerscarried out an investigation to devise the shorter form ofintelligence test needed at the recruiting centres ; -,another worked on the problem of the avoidance oftraffic accidents among Army drivers. Technical in-vestigators of the Industrial Health Research Board ofthe MRC had early been seconded to the staff of thedirectorate ; while the staff of the vocational guidancedepartment of the National Institute of IndustrialPsychology was depleted almost to vanishing point, tosupply the urgent need for selection work in the Armyand Navy. Work similar to that of the DSP has beengoing on both in the Navy and in the RAF. Altogether,it will provide sociologists and anthropologists with avaluable survey of the distribution of aptitudes among avast number of the poulation of this country, and withdata which will still be useful after the war, when thosenow in the fighting Services return to civil life.

TREATMENT OF BACILLARY DYSENTERYIN THE MIDDLE EAST

J. W. PAULLEY, M B LOND, MR C P,FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT, RAFVR

FOR a long time purgation and still further purgationhas been widely accepted as the routine treatment forbacillary dysentery. There has been variation in thedrugs themselves, their length of exhibition and dosage.At a recent medical conference in the Middle East thegeneral feeling was that it was better to do nothing at allfor cases of bacillary dysentery than to give salines. Itwas agreed that to dehydrate an already dehydratedpatient could no longer be considered rational, and thefarce of seeing such cases-which require urgent andimmediate restoration of fluid intravenously-treatedin this way should cease.

Results in a large series of cases treated last year on" do nothing, plus fluids " lines were at least as good asthose obtained at the same time in a series of saline cases.1This tendency of most cases to get better anyway isdisturbing, because in the mild form of disease (whichhas predominated this year) it leads to complacency.’The few cases which do not " do " are lost in a mass ofsatisfaction and quick discharges.The rationale of treatment with kaolin can be sum-

marised as adsorption of toxins ; rest for the gut; andavoidance of dehydration. Bacteriophage has appar-ently been found unsatisfactory by most standards,although it receives recognition on the continent. Largequantities of Bayer’s polyvalent phage were captured inLibya. Pectin and pectinates have been used particu-larly in the dysentery and acute infectious enteritis ofchildren. The mortality of these diseases, below the ageof 3 years, remains deplorably high (they are the scourgeof children’s hospitals) and before the war were one of the-big problems confronting municipal authorities.

Marshall and his colleagues 2 published results in aseries of children treated with sulphaguanidine andreviewed its action ; 220 mg. is soluble in 100 c.cm. atbody temperature, and this was regarded as the levelrequired in the gut for maximum therapeutic effect ;in fact concentrations of 150-200 mg. per 100 c.cm. areachieved by the dosage generally employed. On thesame dosage the blood values per 100 c.cm. vary between3 and 4 mg. (compare 9-10 mg. sulphapyridine). Theguanidine radical makes the drug sufficiently insolubleto remain in the bowel in high concentration. In Marshall’s

1. Lieut.-Colonel Bulmer at a medical conference in the Middle East,1942.

2. Marshall, E. K., Bratton, A. C., Edwards, L. B. and Walker, E.Bull. Johns Hopk. Hosp. 1941, 68, 94.

17 children, mainly with Flexner but some Sonnedysentery, 7 who were treated on or before the third dayhad a rapid and uninterrupted recovery; in the others thereaction was either moderate or there was no demon-strable effect. There were no toxic effects, no hsematuriaand no effect on leucocytes. The quantity of the drugrequired for treating each case is considerable, its presentcost is high and stocks are limited ; so that onlycases giving cause for anxiety, or becoming chronic,are at present receiving sulphaguanidine in the MiddleEast.

Reitler and Marberg 3 published results with sulpha-pyridine in 20 cases, all of which did well. Masefield 4

described a series of cases in a Flexner epidemic. He gave1 g. 4-hourly of sulphapyridine on the first day, 0.5 g.4-hourly on the second, 0-5 g. 6-hourly on the third, 0-5 g.three times on the fourth, and D-5 g. twice on the fifth. Heremarks on the excellent general condition of the patientswhen they were allowed up, usually about 7 days afterthe onset.

Lieut.-Colonel Buttle, who has kindly carried out in-vitro experiments, can find no difference between thebacteriostatic effect of sulphaguanidine and sulpha-pyridine against dysenteric organisms.

TREATMENTS COMPARED

The cases compared here were drawn from an area of afew square miles in the Middle East, over the period April-July, 1942. Most cases were mild ; a few moderate tosevere. The cases in this series fall into the followinggroups : (1) Cases on salines (plus sulphaguanidine whenconsidered neeessary) at a nearby hospital. (2) Caseson sulphaguanidine at this station sick quarters (SSQa).(3) Cases on sulphapyridine at SSQa. (4) Cases on

sulphapyridine ’at Flight-Lieutenant Craib’s stationsick quarters (SSQb). (5) Cases on kaolin at SSQa.

These patients all passed blood and mucus, and thelaboratory either isolated an organism, or reportedindefinite exudate (IE) or bacillary exudate (BE) on thefaeces. Isolation was low throughout and lower in theSSQ cases than in the hospital series. Most of the organ-isms were Flexner, a few were Shiga, Schmitz and Sonne.Personnel were all RAF, RAAF or RCAF. There wasno selection of cases. The hospital series, which actuallyform the control, were men admitted either beforeSSQa was rendered fit to accommodate dysenterypatients, or were " overflows " when the dysenterywards were full. There was no question of admittingseverer cases to the hospital ; rather were they detainedin order that the sulphonamides might be tried further.Unlike many of the dysenteries from forward areas,

3. Reitler, R. and Marberg, K. Brit. med. J. 1941, i, 277.4. Masefield, W. G. Ibid, 1941, ii, 199.