some money. I sold the idea to other members of the class and soon we had chalk lanes mapped out on the floor, a turtle with a number on its back assigned to each member, and were down on our knees, snapping our fingers, and exhorting our respective turtles to hurry up and win the race. As events transpired, the laboratory director walked in, received a confession from the instigator, and following a short office visit let Draper know that he did not have the spirit for scientific research, and would not be going into that field. While Draper thought this a tragedy at the time, he later looked at it as a great turning point in his career, freeing him for work that would eventually bring him prominence in his profession. Draper was allowed to finish the course, after which one of his older classmates, Dr. Hugh Cumming, was put in charge of a scientific study of shellfish and water pollution. Cumming then put Draper in charge of a small laboratory in Colonial Beach, Virginia where he spent the next year studying the bacteriological contamination of oysters in the Potomac River. Since both Washington D.C. and Alexandria, Virginia dumped their raw sewage into the river, Draper was to answer the question of whether oysters were affected 68 miles downstream. He discovered that the pollution had been neutralized by natural processes much further upstream, and thus had no effect where he ran most of his tests. The study was important to ease fears that pollution might be affecting the extensive oyster beds near Point Lookout, Maryland, much further downstream. Following his year at Colonial Beach, Draper returned to the headquarters of the Public Health Service in Washington D.C. and became the assistant to the Chief of Scientific Research., Dr. John W. Kerr, in the Surgeon General's office. Here he helped in the administration of scientific research programs and the Hygienic Laboratory. During this time, Draper participated in a study in Fulton County, Georgia designed to both improve the living conditions of convicts while simultaneously reducing the per capita cost of maintaining them. He co-authored a pamphlet on this study published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1918. World War I When World War I broke out, Draper was assigned as an officer with the U. S. Army and was put in charge of sanitation at Camp Lee, Virginia. He