216 INSURANCE 



lished in this country, connects the science of public medicine with 

 the science of insurance by a chapter on " Atmosphere and Locality." 

 An Englishman by birth, he states that when he was about to leave 

 Great Britain to occupy a situation for which he had been selected 

 in the University of Virginia, a life insurance company of which 

 he was a member declined to continue the insurance unless the pre- 

 mium was doubled. Dunglison states that this requirement com- 

 pelled him to sacrifice or lapse his policy. Many of the assumptions 

 with regard to health in Southern latitudes were, however, largely 

 exaggerated. Dunglison's treatise did much to correct erroneous 

 views, though on the whole a regard for truth compelled the author 

 to admit the extensive prevalence of health-destructive conditions 

 which it required time and an infinite amount of human labor to 

 change for the better. Even at this early period, however, it 

 could be said with much truth that within the last century the value 

 of life had increased progressively and was rapidly improving, but as 

 long as the primitive conditions of pioneer life obtained it was out 

 of the question for life insurance companies to develop their busi- 

 ness on a large scale, especially in the Southern and Western States. 

 Speaking generally, the slow growth of American life insurance during 

 the first half-century was, in a large measure, due to the high mor- 

 tality, the frequency of epidemic diseases, and the fragmentary nature 

 of the vital statistics of the period. 



The selection of risks for insurance, while primarily medical, takes 

 also into careful consideration certain facts, most of which may be 

 included under the general term " environment." These are, locality 

 of residence, housing, occupation, habits, and war, all of which are 

 more or less comprehended in the department of preventive medi- 

 cine and public and personal hygiene. 



The immense development of modern life insurance, approaching 

 that of a universal provident institution, is primarily the result of 

 the insurance education of the public through the solicitor or life 

 insurance agent. Psychology alone explains the mental processes 

 by which so abstract an idea as the theory of risk and insurance is 

 reduced to " insurance consciousness " and made operative on con- 

 duct. It is not necessary, in fact not desirable, because tending to 

 confusion of thought, that the abstract idea or even the business 

 methods of insurance should be comprehended by the applicant for 

 insurance protection, any more than we require to know the chem- 

 ical analysis of food-stuffs and the processes of their manufacture 

 to enjoy and digest our daily meal. What is required is education 

 in the simple elements of insurance protection, emphasized by intelli- 

 gent suggestion and an effective appeal to the emotions. What 

 the prospective policy-holder requires to know is the annual expense 

 of risk transference, the amount of insurance provided in the event 



