Why does the United States Surgeon General appear in a military uniform? Have they always done so? Is it because they are leading the nation’s battle against disease, smokers, and ill health in general? –Jon Komatsu, Pearl City, Hawaii
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The surgeon general wears a uniform because the organization of which she is the chief, the U.S. Public Health Service, is a uniformed service. So is the postal service, you may say, but the postmaster general doesn’t get to dress like Horatio Hornblower. The difference is that the PHS began as the Marine Hospital Service, which was organized along military lines in 1870 to minister to merchant sailors. The members were (and still are) given military-style commissions and naval-style ranks, the idea being that they were a mobile force ready to be thrown into the fray wherever germs raised their ugly if invisible heads. One supposes the fact that MHS doctors often served alongside regular military personnel (e.g., in military camps during wars) and sometimes had to order them around also argued for ranks and uniforms. In 1912 the Marine Hospital Service was reorganized as the Public Health Service (which is now part of the Department of Health and Human Services), but the military trappings remain.
Why does the sun darken skin but lighten hair? –Listener, Garry Meier show, WLUP-FM, Chicago
