326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The pent-up denizens of the courts and alleys of our large towns, 

 surrounded on every side by imperfect light, bad air, and the gen- 

 eral aspects of low life, necessarily degenerate in physical com- 

 petency, and their offspring is of a feeble type. Fortunately, one 

 antidote is to be found in the nomadic instincts of such offsiDring. 

 Better the gutter-life and street Arab gymnastics than the sickly 

 incapability of a pent-up cellar child. When people are huddled 

 together in badly ventilated hovels and narrow courts, comj)elled 

 to live almost without light and air, the effects are soon made clear. 

 The unsavory courts and slums of our large towns can not but be 

 productive of a lowered vital force and impoverished physique. 

 The fact must not be overlooked that there are two classes of 

 town-dwellers : one being those who dwell for a limited number 

 of hours in the day — that is, whose occupation keeps them in close 

 offices and places of business during the day, but who sleep in the 

 suburbs in purer atmospheric conditions ; and those who pass the 

 whole of their lives in bad contaminated air without the advan- 

 tage of a few hours' respite out of the twenty-four. It is with the 

 latter class that my observations deal. 



The second chief factor of deterioration — viz., had liabits of life 

 — tells a sad story on the physical power of the town-dweller ; 

 probably through ignorance, but certainly indifference to the or- 

 dinary precepts of health is the rule of life. It is no doubt a fact 

 that intemperance largely exists among this class, and the inci- 

 dence of debauch upon them is heavier than upon those who live 

 under more favorable conditions. Then the various forms of im- 

 purity smite with devitalizing severity the offspring to the third 

 and fourth generations. Moreover, the general tendency of their 

 ailments is of the asthenic type. When we add to these conditions 

 of human existence the influence of imperfect feeding and mal- 

 nutrition, we get the state of physical degeneracy largely increased 

 and emphasized. In the paper alluded to great stress was laid 

 upon the diet of the town-dweller, as compared with that of the 

 countryman, as tending to degeneracy and impaired health. The 

 digestive capability of the former is of a lower standard, and less 

 capable of dealing with the ordinary articles of diet, than the 

 latter. Consequently, they live on such food as they can digest 

 without suffering — bread, fish, and meat ; above all, the last. The 

 sapid, tasty flesh of animals, which sits lightly upon the stomach, 

 gives an acce^Dtable feeling of satiety, so pleasant to experience. 

 Such selection is natural and intelligible, but it is fraught with 

 danger. I quote from the paper : " The chief diet selected by the 

 town -dweller begets a condition known to doctors as the uric- 

 acid diathesis, with its many morbid consequences. Pulmonary 

 phthisis and Bright's disease seem Dame Nature's means of weed- 

 ing out degenerating town-dwellers." Such are some of the medi- 



