434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To go on with a bare enumeration of the organic defects handed 

 down from parent to child would occupy many pages. Enough has 

 heen said to convey some idea of the magnitude of the evil. There is 

 no cause of grief, of misery and suffering that will hear comparison 

 with it. Even that of war is a mercy compared with the torments 

 of disease. The seventy thousand annually slain by one disease, con- 

 sumption, involves an amount of suffering which no battle-field can 

 equal. In the latter death is usually sudden, and therefore almost 

 painless, while death by consumption implies months of torture by the 

 destruction of lung tissue inch by inch. 



In an age distinguished for progress and philanthropy, that such a 

 gigantic evil has received scarcely any attention is worthy of remark. 

 In large j>art is this doubtless due to the prevailing opinion that the 

 development of inherited tendencies to disease is unavoidable a visi- 

 tation upon children for the sins of the fathers, not to be averted. 

 Even among medical men is there a prevailing skepticism as to the 

 renovation of defective blood. Yet it will be admitted by the candid 

 among them that this doubt is not grounded on a careful study of the 

 subject, but on some desultory observations, and on some remarks to 

 be met with here and there in medical literature. In palliation this 

 may be said, that as a rule physicians are far more intent in discover- 

 ing the best means of curing than of averting disease, well knowing 

 that the latter is a thankless and little honored pursuit, while the for- 

 mer brings large returns of gratitude and reward. 



If in our forty millions of people some twenty-six million inherit 

 some constitutional defect, the question is of deep and wide interest 

 whether such imperfection can be erased, and, if so, by Avhat means. 

 The interests involved are : a nearer extension of life to its normal 

 limits, greater freedom from disease and deformity ; a diminution in 

 the necessity for ever-growing asylums for the helplessly imperfect 

 and diseased ; an increase of the ratio of able-bodied men for the de- 

 fense of the state in time of need ; a lessened necessity for the con- 

 sumption of drugs and the support of forty thousand physicians ; and 

 an increase and perpetuation of the blood which has been our chief 

 glory as a nation. 



The nearer the approach to physical perfection, the less likely will 

 be the occurrence of derangement and disease from slight causes, such 

 as atmospheric vicissitudes, and the greater the chances that the ter- 

 mination of life will be natural, or from the harmonious, progressive, 

 and painless decay of the body as a whole. Death by disease through 

 one organ is abnormal, violent, and torturing ; there should be no weak 

 points in the citadel of life. Men with excellent physical organizations 

 do not need to be ever on the watch for the preservation of their 

 health. They possess that buoyancy of life which carries them safely 

 over all the minor influences inimical to healthy action. All that is 

 requh-ed of them for the preservation of such a vital excellence is, that 



