THE RACE FIBER OF THE CHINESE 403 



THE RACE FIBER OF THE CHIXESE 



By Professor EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS 



UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



OUT of ten children born among us three, normally the weakest 

 three, will fail to grow up. Out of ten children born in China 

 these weakest three will die and probably five more besides. The dif- 

 ference is owing to the hardships that infant life meets with among 

 the Chinese. If at birth the white infants and the yellow infants are 

 equal in stamina, the two surviving Chinese ought to possess greater 

 vitality of constitution than the seven surviving whites. For of these 

 seven the five that would infallibly have perished under oriental con- 

 ditions of life are presumably weaker in constitution than the two who 

 could have endured even such conditions. The two Chinese survivors 

 will transmit some of their superior vitality to their offspring; and 

 these in turn will be subject to the same sifting and the surviving two 

 tenths will pass on to their children a still greater vitality. So that 

 these divergent child mortalities drive, as it were, a wedge between the 

 physiques of the two races. If, now, for generations we whites, owing 

 to room and plenty and scientific medicine and knowledge of hygiene 

 have been subject to a less searching and relentless elimination of the 

 weaker than the Chinese, it would be reasonable to expect the Chinese 

 to exhibit a greater vitality than the whites. 



With a view to ascertaining whether the marked slackening in our 

 struggle for life during the last century or two and our greater skill in 

 keeping people alive has produced noticeable effects on our physique, 

 I closely questioned thirty-three physicians practising in various parts 

 of China, usually at mission hospitals. 



Of these physicians, only one, a very intelligent German doctor at 

 Tsing tao, had noticed no point of superiority in his Chinese patients. 

 He declared them less enduring of injury, less responsive to treatment 

 and no more enduring of pain than the simple and hardy peasants of 

 Thuringia amongst whom he had formerly practised. Three other 

 physicians, each of whom had practised a quarter century or more in 

 China, had observed no difference in the physical reactions of the two 

 races. I fancy their recollections of their brief student practise at 

 home had so faded with time that they lacked one of the terms of the 

 comparison. Moreover, two of these admitted under questioning that 

 the Chinese do stand high fevers remarkably well and that they do 

 recover from blood poisoning when a white man would die. 



The remaining twenty-nine physicians were positive that the 



