TEE JEWS: BACE AND ENVIRONMENT 39 



is a day of rest among the orthodox Jews in eastern Europe, and not 

 of drink and dissipation, to find a reason for greater immunity to cer- 

 tain diseases, and to a lesser liability to accidental death. Their occupa- 

 tions also are mainly of the kind in which violent or accidental deaths 

 are not of frequent occurrence. There are, relatively, very few Jews 

 engaged in shipping, mining and dangerous trades generally. The 

 deleterious effects of the indoor occupations in which the Jews are 

 largely employed are mostly manifesting themselves in the anemia and 

 poor physique which are characteristic of them. But, on the other hand, 

 they are rarely exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, and thus 

 acute articular rheumatism, pneumonia, etc., are less often a cause of 

 death among them than among others. In fact, diseases of the respira- 

 tory organs, including tuberculosis, have been observed to be less com- 

 monly a cause of death among the Jews in Eussia, Hungary, Austria, 

 England and America. 1 Their partial immunity to consumption is 

 astonishing, considering that they are mostly engaged at indoor occupa- 

 tions, working long hours in unhealthy sweatshops, and living in the 

 most congested parts of the cities. Perhaps a good explanation may 

 be found in the confined Ghetto life in which they have been compelled 

 to live for centuries, and which has adapted their organism to indoor 

 life much better than other civilized peoples, who have a large propor- 

 tion of agriculturists and outdoor workers. During the long years 

 of Ghetto life most of those whose organism could not adapt itself to 

 the confined atmosphere succumbed and were thus eliminated. It is a 

 general observation that races that are not adapted to indoor life 

 quickly succumb to consumption as soon as they attempt to live in 

 modern dwellings. Among the uncultured ' blanket ' Indians of our 

 western plains, and among the Indians of Peru, the Khirgiz Tartars 

 and other savage tribes of Africa and Australia, all of which live out- 

 doors, the disease is almost unknown. But as soon as the same people 

 are taken to modern cities, they can not stand it, but soon contract 

 various diseases common in large cities, particularly tuberculosis. They 

 have not had the opportunity to slowly adapt themselves to an indoor 

 existence, as was the case with the Jews. 



Suicide 

 That purely social factors are the underlying cause of the low 

 mortality rates of the Jews, and that with changes in their social con- 

 ditions there occur also changes in the death rates, are well illustrated 

 by the frequency of suicide among them. Statistics collected by 

 Morselli (' Suicide,' p. 122) show that during the third quarter of the 

 last century Jews only rarely committed suicide. He attributes it 

 partly to racial, and partly to religious influences, and maintains that 

 individuals fervently devoted to religion, especially women (nuns and 



1 See ' The Relative Infrequeney of Tuberculosis among Jews,' by the author, 

 in American Medicine, November 2, 1901. 



