Bodies and Cultures Collide: Enlistment, the Medical Exam, and the British Working Class, 1914-1916

This article examines the military medical exam which working-class volunteers underwent in the years 1914-16. The wave of enlistees at the beginning of the First World War brought the physical results of the Industrial Revolution home to doctors, the Army, and the British government in general. In a Social Darwinist age, the vision of malnourishment and physical stunting coexisted uneasily with the apparent zeal of the rush to colours of so many workers. But it was more than that. The medical exam was also an encounter for the working-class volunteers. It was, in fact, a gateway for them, in which they were measured and found either worthy of service, or wanting. Working-class volunteers fought to get into the military despite not meeting the minimum physical requirements, and Army doctors cooperated with them and even helped them subvert those physical requirements. It was thus not only a cultural confrontation for both sides, permeated by Social Darwinist attitudes that confused physical stature with moral ardour, but a moment of co-operation and negotiation between doctors and enlistees, with the careful veneer of medical science camouflaging them.