Forestry and the Public Health 



By Henry Rk.ed Hopkins, M. D. 

 Former President Medical Society of New York 



T( ) Americans no subject is of more vital importance which includes all varieties of beautiful plants and flowers, 

 than that of forestry. Without our forests the of edible grains and fruits, and that this forest kingdom 

 fertility of our soil, the profits of our farms and had possession of the surface of the earth for many mil- 

 gardens, the building, the operating, the profits of our lions of years before the appearance upon the earth of 

 railroads, the operations of our mines of coal and iron. man, or of a single specimen of animal life. In fact. 



the building and the main- 

 tenance of our homes, our 

 industries, in fact, our civ- 

 ilization disappears, and 

 what the traveler now sees 

 in many parts of the old 

 world in Palestine, Greece, 

 Northern Africa, North- 

 ern China, and Central 

 India will be seen on the 

 plains of America. 



Our minds may possibly 

 ojien to a more proi^er 

 valuation of this matter 

 as we recall the past rapid 

 growth of our population 

 and then forecast that 

 within a couple of centu- 

 ries, a brief period in the 

 growth of nations. Amer- 

 ica should be the home of 

 some 500,000,000 of pros- 

 perous, free and indepen- 

 dent citizens. We know 

 of no facts more ])otential 

 in our future possibilities 

 than the facts of the rela- 

 tions of forests to climate, 

 to productiveness of soil, 

 to industries, to the pros- 

 perity of nations, to civili- 

 zation. 



We now invite earnest 

 consideration of some of 

 the well-known principles 



and facts upon which the foregoing inferences and con- 

 clusions are predicated. During the last twenty years the 

 ]jroblems of forestry in our country have been enthusias- 

 tically studied, and the literature is rapidly growing in 

 interest and in scientific value. Some acquaintance with 

 this literature prompts us to call attention to the follow- 

 ing data, the groundwork of our opinion as to the timeli- 

 ness and the fundamental importance of our subject. 



First, let our minds enjoy the exercise of a biological 

 excursion ; let us recall that our forests are the royal 

 family, the princes and the monarchs of that kingdom 



DR. HENRY REED HOPKINS 



Who urges members of the medical ji-ofession to study forestry and 

 tells why forestry is closely allied to health. 



during this long period, 

 forests and their kind were 

 preparing the way for ani- 

 mal life — for man. The 

 thought we would chiefly 

 emphasize is that this long 

 and complicated evolution- 

 ary development by for- 

 ests for man's residence 

 upon the earth was in en- 

 tire harmony with the laws 

 and vital principles of 

 man's nature and possible 

 progress, and that those 

 same laws and vital prin- 

 ciples — man's material en- 

 vironment — are here and 

 in operation today and for 

 all time. Neither should 

 we overlook the important 

 l)iological fact of man's in- 

 timate dependence upon 

 the food, oxygen, without 

 wdiich he lives but a few 

 moments, and also that 

 man in his more important 

 metabolic processes is con- 

 stantly producing large 

 quantities of carbonic acid, 

 a poisonous gas, the pres- 

 ence of wdiich in a certain 

 proportion in the air makes 

 the same unfit to breathe; 

 and we may recall that our 

 forests exhale vast quan- 

 tities of oxvgen and generously absorb like quantities of 

 c;irbonic acid. 



Let us direct our thoughts for a moment to something 

 possibly more plainly practical, more distinctly economic 

 in its significance ; we refer to the distressing phenome- 

 non of many of the rivers of America of breaking out 

 into destructive, devastating floods of increasing fre- 

 quency and severity. The National Conservation Com- 

 mission, in its report for 1908 and 1909, gives much space 

 to an interesting discussion of this matter of floods. From 

 this we learn that these disasters are steadily and surely 



417 



