564 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



habits of men will be changed and certain diseases which arise from 

 alimentary vices will disappear. Already, because the excesses of 

 meat eating to which our fathers gave themselves up are exceptional 

 to-day, gout has become very rare; it is doomed to disappear. 

 Obesity, sick headache, and some diabetes connected with overeating 

 will be suppressed when men resign themselves to moderation. They 

 had practically disappeared in Germany under the influence of the 

 forced alimentary restriction during the war. 



Alcoholism, also, with its hepatic, nervous, and mental symptoms, 

 should vanish if the nations had the firm will to abolish it. There 

 would remain only a certain number of hopeless drunkards — just as 

 there are some morphine addicts throughout the world. 



As regards the infectious diseases, of which the germ is introduced 

 through the digestive tube — typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery— 

 and as regards enteritis, brought on by intestinal parasites, they are 

 already less frequent than formerly, and they are destined to disap- 

 pear through the progress of nutritional hygiene and especially 

 through the use of sterilized drinking water. Tuberculosis itself, in 

 so far as it is related to the diet in infancy, should diminish. Such 

 is the importance of the results which we may expect from nu- 

 tritional education. If it is given early and very generally, if it is 

 addressed to the children and to their mothers, it will efface little 

 by little from pathology a series of diseases which result from die- 

 tary errors, and it will improve the health of individuals, and the 

 beauty of the race. It will accomplish the double purpose, both 

 individual and social, which the philosopher Guyau assigned to a 

 good education. It is, therefore, with good reason that we make 

 it one of our first considerations. 



