Experience of PULHEEMS in the 1952 Army intake.

It has long been the custom for the armed Services to grade recruits medically before accepting them for training. Since the war of 1939/45 an elaborate system of grading known as PULHEEMS has been used, and it is now possible to see what it portrays of the young men who have been joining the Forces. Entrants to the Services are given three medical examinations within five or six months. First a provisional assessment is made by the Ministry of Labour and National Service; then when they are called up, and subsequently at the end of basic training, the Services themselves carry out further examinations of entrants to ensure their fitness for military duties. The PULHEEMS system codifies the results of the examination by allotting numbers to each of a few descriptive " qualities " whose initials form the title of the system. The only strictly objective qualities are the central letters, H for hearing and EE for eyes, where the Tesults of standard tests are registered on a well-defined scale. This leaves the tail of the word, M (mental capacity), and S (emotional stability), as it were the capacity for thought and feeling, and the head of the word where U and L stand for upper and lower limbs, andP for physique; the latter is associated to some extent with the other qualities. In all these qualities of the head and tail the assessment is of functional capacity to perform a duty. The duty is not specific, and relates to two requirements, eventual fitness for combat and for service in any climate. Standards are changed where appropriate, as for women, and during service perhaps for officers, but we shall not be concerned with these here. The present analysis is of the PULHEEMS assessment on call-up of the entire Army intake of 1952 and represents only the fittest 80% of the young male population called up for National Service in that year. With this limitation it is a complete national coverage and can be used as a standard reference for any special group whose physical qualities are to be assessed. Discharges from the Army due to re-assessment in the first weeks of training are discussed, and include an important group of men who deteriorated in condition since they were first examined. It is shown that the large number of theoretically possible grades reduces to a moderate number in practice, corresponding to recognized defects. The relative importance of these and their likely disposal are examined. Certain associations are shown to exist, as, for example, between hearing and emotional stability.