14. Use of intoxicating question of the use of intoxicating liquors forms a very important part of the information which is sought to be obtained. To illustrate, note the following questions which are Asked. (a) Have you ever been engaged in the sale or manufacture of liquors? (b) Have you used them during the past year? (c) If you have, what has been your daily average? (d) What was the maxi mum amount used in any one day? (e) Have you been intoxicated during the past five years? (f) Have you ever taken treatment for alcoholic or drug habit? (g) If you are a total abstainer, how long have you been so? It will be noted from the minute detail of these ques tions that they are deemed of primary importance by the medical examiner. In the early days of life insur ance, the question was probably comparatively simple and only asked the applicant if he used intoxicating liquors. But this was found to have so many mean ings with the different applicants that it became neces sary to develop a series of questions in order to call forth the exact information that was desired.
In regard to the use of drugs, it might be pointed out that they occupy a somewhat different moral status from the use of liquors. Anyone will state without question whether he does or does not use intoxicating liquors, but the use of drugs is a habit which one instinctively seeks to conceal, and it is deemed far more difficult to obtain information con cerning that matter than concerning the use of liquors.
While heredity is not deemed of so much impor tance as it was in the early days of life insurance and up to a few years ago, it does have a certain bearing, especially in connection with certain diseases, as tuber culosis. Questions concerning such disease will usu ally deal not merely with the individual himself, but with the members of the household who are afflicted with that disease.
In regard to the family, information is collected as to the age of the parents at the time of death, if not living, and the same regarding the brother and sister, also in regard to grandparents.
15. Medical examiner's report.—The medical ex aminer is then called upon to fill out a report based largely on the information gathered directly, or by observation, at the time of the examination. The re
port closes up with the direct question as to the exam iner's willingness to recommend the applicant for in surance. The report is then duly certified and passed on for the inspection of the medical officer at the home office.
16. Is medical examination necessary?—In the be ginning of life insurance there was no medical exami nation. There was probably little necessity for an examination, since there was no attempt to do busi ness over a wide extent of territory and business was local. It must have been a rare case in those days and indeed for some decades after the business was founded, when any applications for insurance could not be well certified to the trustees by persons with whom they were acquainted and on whose judgment they relied. When the companies began to branch out and the business became larger, it was necessary to protect their interest, and this coincides with the insured's interest, by a medical examination. Such an examination is not indispensable and it is omitted, in certain cases where the number of entrants is suf ficient to permit of the principle of choice not being exercised against the company. Any company could probably insure safely the first thousand or second thousand or more men who pass its door. The diffi culty is that without medical examination the choice would be steadily against the company. Those who had some reason to feel that their lives were sub-stand ard, would seek insurance and not those who were confident of their good health. In the now develop ing field of group insurance as it is called, where all the employes of a plant may be insured, admittance to the company is permissible without medical exam ination because the number is so large that the com pany secures a fairly average selection of lives in the whole group.
Our knowledge of the human body has led to the conclusion that the result of a medical examination may be relied upon for about five years. After that period insured lives tend to approach more nearly to the normal level of the great body of uninsured lives.