RULES AND REGULATIONS PRESCRIBING THE METHOD AND PROCEDURE OF SELECTION OF TRAINEES FOR MILITARY SERVICE
Pursuant to the provisions of section fifty-five of Commonwealth Act Numbered One, entitled "The National Defense Act," I, Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippines, do hereby provide and promulgate the following rules and regulations prescribing the method and procedure of selection of trainees for military service:
1. They physical examination should take place in a large, well-lighted room. The person to be examined is to be stripped.1âwphi1 The examining physician should proceed in substantially the following order, viz:
(a) Observe the general condition of the skin, scalp, and chest. Take weight, height, and chest measurements. Minimum measurements are as follows, all chest measurements to be taken on a level just above the nipple:
Slight variations below the minimum requirements given in the table may be allowed when the subject is active, has firm muscles, and evidently vigorous and healthy.
A reduction of one centimeter may be allowed in chest measurement provided there is no disease of the chest or contained organs.
Trainees who do not come up to the standard given in this table, but who are otherwise free from any defect or pathological condition which might interfere with the performance of duty expected of them, shall be placed under Class II—Fit for limited service only—for assignment to special service.
(b) The arms being extended above the head, the subject is required to cough vigorously; any form of rupture (hernia) may now be discovered by the hand and eye, but better still by the index finger passed up to the external ring. The most common locations for hernia are the groins, the navel, and old scars from abdominal operations.
(c) The arms remaining extended above the head, the subject is required to take a long step forward with the right foot and bend the right knee; the genital organs are now conveniently exposed and defects in the scrotum may be recognized. Look for inflammations, accumulations of fluids, and excessive varicocele.
(d) Arms down and the subject required to separate the buttocks with his hands at the same time bending forward; this exposes the anus.
(e) Examine the heart and lungs; rate of pulse and respiration.
(f) Upper extremities.—Make sure that all joints are free and supple, from phalanges to the shoulder.
(g) Lower extremities.—The subject is required to leap directly up, striking the buttocks with the heels, to hop the length of the room on the ball of first one foot and then the other, to make a standing jump as far as possible, to run the length of the room in double time several times; after which his heart and lungs are reexamined.
(h) Examine the groins for enlarged glands or buboes; examine the penis for malformations, ulcerations and gonorrhea or other signs of venereal disease.
(i) The mental examination should be such as to determine whether the subject is possessed of normal, sound understanding. The age of the subject must be taken into consideration.
(j) Vision.—Test the vision of each eye separately. Place the test card on a good lighted wall six meters (twenty feet) from the subject. The visual minimum requirements are twenty-fiftieth for the better eye and twenty-hundredth for the poorer, provided that no organic disease exists in either eye. Registrants whose vision falls below the above requirements but whose minimum vision is twenty-two hundredth in each eye, correctible with glasses to twenty-fortieth in either eye, when no organic disease of either eye exists, shall be placed under Class II—Fit for limited service only.
(k) Hearing will be tested by the ordinary conversational voice at six meters (twenty feet) distant. The subject should stand with his back to the examiner while an assistant closes each of the subject’s ears in succession. The subject should be directed to repeat the words spoken by the examiner. If he cannot hear the words at twenty feet, the examiner should approach foot by foot, using the same voice, until the words are repeated correctly. Low conversational voice (not whisper), should be used and numerals, names of places, or other words or sentences should be given. The hearing, with both ears open should not be below ten-twentieth.
(l) Causes for physical exemption.—
Mental.—Nervous and mental diseases.
Skin.—Chronic, contagious, and parasitic diseases, when severe and extensive; chronic ulcers, deep or extensive. In these cases, the subject should first be subjected to medical treatment before his assignment to a training class.
Ears.—Any discharge from the ear. Perforation of the tympanum in a dry ear is not disqualifying, provided the hearing is ten-twentieth or better.
Eyes.—Acuteness of vision below minimum requirements, conjunctival affections, including trachoma and ontropion, marked strabismus, diseases of the lachrymal apparatus, exopthalmos, ptosis, asthenopia, nystagmus.
Mouth, nose, and throat.—Deformities interfering with mastication or speech, chronic ulcerations, fissures, or perforations of the hard palate, hyperthrophy of tonsils sufficient to interfere with respiration or phonation, loss of voice. The subject must have at least four serviceable molar teeth, to serve the purpose of mastication. A good fitting bridge or plate where not more than one-half of the teeth are involved is not disqualifying. If artificial denture will restore the teeth so as to meet the requirements of proper mastication, the man should be accepted.
Obstruction of nostrils, or foul discharges indicative of ozena. Simple atrophic rhinitis is curable. Nasal polypi often means chronic sinusitis, but are not a bar to acceptance.
Neck.—Pronounced goiter, great enlargement, or ulcerations of the cervical glands.
Chest.—Diseases of the lungs particularly pulmonary tuberculosis, especially in flat or narrow or malformed chest. Organic diseases of the heart. In examining the heart care should be taken not to ascribe to disease the hurried sharply accentuated action sometimes due to nervousness, fright, or embarrassment or the irregular action caused by the excessive use of tobacco. Nor should the examiner attach undue importance to the soft systolic murmur often heard in growing athletic youths, functional and temporary in their nature.
Abdomen.—Chronic inflammations of the gastro-intestinal tract, including chronic diarrhea and dysentery, and other diseases of the contained organs; great care should be exercised before exempting for these conditions; hernia in all situations.
Anus.—Hemorrhoids of a pronounced type, prolapsus and fistula.
Genito-urinary organs.—Syphilitic lesions; tight urethral stricture, undescended testicles, chronic orchitis, marked hydrocele, chronic diseases of the bladder and kidneys. Varicocele does not constitute a cause for rejection unless it is so large as to interfere with locomotion; it frequently occurs among robust men and often without their being aware of its existence; gonorrhea, acute, and chronic.
Affections common to both extremities.—Diseases of the joints of disabling type, irreducible dislocation or false joints, old dislocations if attended with impairment of motion or distortion of the joint, chronic synovitis, badly united fractures, caries, necrosis, atrophy or paralysis, extensive or adherent scars, permanent contraction of muscles.
(m) Trainee registrants who are found to have some defects, not of a serious nature, which will not prevent them from rendering services in special branches of the Army, shall be admitted under Class II—For limited service only—for assignment to special service.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Commonwealth of the Philippines to be affixed.
Done at the City of Manila, this sixteenth day of July, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, and of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the first.
