REMOVAL OF INHERITED TENDENCIES. 435 



unfavorable influences shall not be too intense, or suffered to act upon 

 them for any great length of time. On the other hand, those defec- 

 tively organized can not overstep the bounds of the most watchful pru- 

 dence without incurring suffering. Only by the most minute and accu- 

 rate knowledge of hygiene, and unswerving attention to its require- 

 ments, are they enabled to avoid pain, disease, and an untimely end. 



The genius of our civilization in its physiological aspect is to make 

 spendthrifts of us all of our vital riches. It includes no such aim as 

 race improvement. True, some youthful culture of the head and heart 

 is supposed to reach after that object. But it does not. It looks only 

 to immediate success in social distinctions, or to winning in competitive 

 struggles, not to the more remote objects of our improvement as a 

 race. Indeed, the instances in which physical degeneration, by the 

 prevailing injudicious and highly prized head-culture, is not thereby 

 begun, are altogether exceptional. Compare the highly educated son 

 with his father, and a perceptible diminution in the grade of constitu- 

 tional stamina is nearly always manifest. Continue the process for a 

 generation or two, and a progressive deterioration will ensue until 

 there are only sickly boys to grow up into invalided manhood. 



Very few ever think of, and yet fewer ever seek after, the accumu- 

 lation of vital riches. Only when brought to suffering by poverty of 

 this kind is the mind aroused to any interest in the subject. Prior to 

 the inception of disease, a thoughtless squandering of vital reserve is 

 what our social practices systematically encourage ; and when as a 

 consequence corporeal structure is inharmoniously developed, when 

 debility, disease, and untimely death ensue, these are not regarded as 

 the evidences of a fatal flaw in the existing system of civilization, but 

 as matters of prevision which alone concern Providence and the doc- 

 tors. The constitutional vigor, thus so blindly spent, renders frequent 

 demands upon the highest resources of the healing art urgently neces- 

 sary. And it must be confessed that in prolonging the life of defec- 

 tive blood there are displayed a skill and care never before equaled. 

 During the more primitive phases of civilization, those of weak and 

 defective blood were more liable to be swept into an untimely grave 

 than they are to-day. Now, all such are skillfully nursed up to the 

 fertile period, to the multiplication and perpetuation of their kind. 

 The profound study, the active sympathy, and systematic charity be- 

 stowed upon the wrecks of our race for their cure and preservation, 

 when compared with the prevailing indifference as to the means of 

 preventing the steady increase of such helpless unfortunates, is far 

 from flattering to our foresight in economy and beneficent work. Vast 

 infirmaries, hospitals, and asylums dot the land to shelter and cure the 

 ever-increasing ratio who become pitifully and hopelessly bankrupt in 

 vital condition ; yet there is no money, no labor, light, or system 

 brought to bear to hinder this downward career, but very much of all 

 thoughtlessly we will allow to aid in its increase and perpetuation. 



