162 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



or whose blood pressure is excessive, or who harbours an 

 undue amount of anaerobic microbes in his intestines can 

 hardly lay claim to the latter designation.) The importance 

 of this branch of science few who have studied the biological 

 significance of food amongst animals in a state of nature or 

 the variations in health amongst domestic animals resulting 

 from altered dietaries would be concerned to deny. Yet the 

 attitude of orthodox medical men on this crucial matter re- 

 mains far from satisfactory. In the first place the physio- 

 logical allowance of food for men in health — recently, be it 

 noted, seriously impugned by actual experiments in America 

 — rests on that customary amongst inhabitants of the British 

 Isles at the present day. Now the consumption of meat per 

 head in these islands has within the last fifty years more than 

 doubled itself. Apart then from the questionable propriety of 

 taking as standards the dietaries in use amongst a people like 

 ourselves riddled with diseases of metabolism, either the present 

 allowances of meat are excessive or those customary in the 

 good old days— before physical deterioration commissions — 

 were very deficient. Again, according to accepted views on 

 human physiology and nutrition, what is more clearly demon- 

 strated than the impossibility of maintaining health and strength 

 on a diet of rice alone ? Nevertheless there is reliable evidence 

 that labourers in China, living on such a diet, carry to great 

 distances loads that an Englishman could not even lift. 



The fact is that in a consideration of the standards of health 

 and of the causation of disease — when indeed their scrutiny 

 extends so far — the medical profession are much too prone 

 to limit their inquiries to the peculiar and special circumstances 

 of humanity as found in their present day of grace in England, 

 America, France, Germany and a few other countries. The 

 diseases — where not microbic — diet, drink, clothing and mode 

 of life generally of modern civilised man they regard in the 

 light of established norms as the matrix in which humanity, 

 or at least civilised humanity, must inevitably crystallise. 

 Thus, when an English authority defines health as "that con- 

 dition of structure and function which, on an examination of 

 a sufficient number of examples, we find to be the commonest," 

 we may be quite certain that the examples in question will be 

 drawn from England and consequently that an unduly high 

 number of anaerobic microbes in the colon or an excessive 



