WHITE RACE IN THE TROPICS — WARD 561 



chance of good health. But the question is a far larger one than 

 that. It concerns not one individual alone, nor even one generation 

 alone. Tiie real problem is this: Can men and women of the white 

 race immigrate in large numbers to the moist hot Tropics and live 

 there on the same high plane of civilization as that characteristic of 

 their former homes, retaining their physical health and vitality, 

 their mental and moral standards, and reproducing their own kind^ 

 Further, can future generations of white people, born in the Tropics, 

 maintain, in the years to come, these same standards of civilization 

 and of physical, mental, and moral vigor il This, it will be observed, 

 is a very much larger, more complex, and more fundamental question, 

 but it is tlje real crux of the whole matter. And this much larger 

 (juestion is, at present, very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to 

 answer on the basis of known scientific facts. 



The health relation of the white race in tropical clinuites is be^t 

 considered from two points of view, first, the general one of tropical 

 diseases, and second, the one that concerns the effects of physiological 

 disturbances without always, or necessarily, involving specific disease. 



It is not for the layman, without professional knowledge of medi- 

 cal science, to attempt any technical discussion of tropical diseases. 

 He may, however, consider some of the obvious facts without com- 

 mitting himself in regard to details which do not properly fall in his 

 own field of scientific study. 



Certain diseases are so much at home in the Tropics that they have 

 come to be known as tropical diseases. This designation does not 

 imply that some of them may not, and do not, occur in extratropical 

 latitudes when conditions of climate, traffic, unsanitary mode of life, 

 absence of proper medical supervision, and so on, favor such oc- 

 currence. There is greater variety in tropical than in extratropical 

 disease, but tlien, many diseases common in cooler latitudes i)revail 

 also near the Equator, and many are found in low latitudes which have 

 been practically or altogether banished from higher latitudes. Again, 

 certain diseases even in the Tropics, as is well known, e. g., in the case 

 of yellow fever, have been hemmed in more and more by modern 

 sanitary measures. Several conditions are at work in favoring the 

 widespread prevalence and in determining the large number of trop- 

 ical diseases. Among these three may here be mentioned : The agency 

 of tropical insects and parasites in propagating or in transmitting 

 the disease geiin ; tlie general weakening effect of the steady, damp 

 beat upon the human body, and the excessively unhygienic modes of 

 life of the natives. The tropical climate is not the sole, or even in 

 many cases the determining factor, yet certain high temi)eratures 

 are necessary for the occurrence and spread of malaria and yellow 

 fever, for example, and the agency of the tropical fauna, whose re- 

 quirements are the presence of known conditions of heat and of 



