DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCIES OF MODERN LIFE 333 



hero. Nor was the case exceptional, for looking back on the history 

 of our great Indian dependency, one can not fail to be struck with 

 the high average ability of the few who survived to attain leading 

 positions. . . . But the rank and file, who could not or would not 

 learn, died off like rotten sheep." So it is to-day in all parts of the 

 globe and nowhere more plainly true than in the United States that 

 only an exceptional man, almost a genius, learns to modify his habits 

 and his life to his environment and to triumph over his surroundings, 

 his appetites and the absurd dictates of fashion. All the world over 

 the genius carves out his proper regime for himself, the average man, 

 ignorantly complaisant, indulges his appetites like the rest of his kind, 

 dies like a rotten sheep and leaves his life-work unfinished. 



The foregoing remarks have been confined mainly to diet because 

 that is now the most pressing question before the people of this 

 country and because, as said above, it is a matter upon which the 

 utmost diversity of opinion exists. An observation of 10,000 people for 

 ten years may be necessary to settle the question of the average standard 

 diet for the average man at the different stages of life. If, however, 

 it should take ten times as long and cost an amount equal to the 

 national debt, it would be money and time well expended if the 

 question should be settled thereby. In collating vital statistics, 

 while the time of the death of any one man can not with certainty 

 be predicted, the deaths of ten thousand individuals can be fixed 

 with the nicest accuracy. Nothing can be asserted in regard to 

 the individual, but in regard to the multitude the success of the sta- 

 tistical method is surprising. So in the matter of the health records 

 of one man little can be assumed from a study of his habits; if, how- 

 ever, we could ascertain the life habits of 10,000 men, there is no 

 question but that we could establish certain important truths in regard 

 to them beyond all controversy. And it is equally certain that this 

 is the only method by which some of these truths can be established. 

 There is to-day absolutely nothing known about the etiology of cancer. 

 This dreadful and constantly increasing disease has been studied in 

 every way; in the individual, at the bedside, in the laboratory, in the 

 post-mortem room, by inoculation into animals, etc., etc., and nothing 

 conclusive has been discovered in regard to its causation. Had the life- 

 habits of 10,000 people suffering with cancer been studied as to their 

 diet, their occupation and surroundings, their use of alcohol, tobacco, 

 etc., as well as the questions of heredity, of physical development and 

 of the precedence of other diseased conditions in the same subject, there 

 can be no doubt that important and probably convincing light, would 

 have been shed upon the whole question. Studied in individuals, the 

 cause of this scourge of the race has escaped every effort to locate it; 

 had it been studied collectively, with a large enough number of observa- 



