PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION D. ^l 



form of inite being produced in the hot chmate of Formosa and 

 in parts of Japan and Korea where the temperature is high in 

 certain months, while tlie large haired forms were produced in 

 cooler periods. 



Some Sociological Aspects. 



Prom a survey of the parasitesof plants and animals just made, 

 reflections are bound to arise as to their bearing on men, not as 

 individuals but as a social organisation. The eminent authority 

 on hygiene, Colonel R. H. Firth, E.A.M.C,, while in the trenches 

 in France during the Great War, wrote a series of reflections on 

 various problems, and in one, published in 1915,* he stated : 

 " The fundamental idea of progress, as conditioned by the struggle 

 for existence, involves the principle that to live, or at any rate to 

 live ascendingly, is to strive. That universal law of striving can 

 be broken only at the certain cost of degeneracy. . . . Feed 

 intellectually a people on short paragraphs or cinemas, and they 

 will be incapable of mentally assimilating anything that requires 

 a little effort for its reception. . . . The tapeworm is a parasite 

 and the product of long years of evolutionary sti'iving, but, as it 

 has made the great refusal and decided to live upon the activities 

 of another creature, it proceeds to discard nearly all its own vital 

 apparatus. . . . One cannot disguise from oneself that these bio- 

 logical principles and facts are true and have sociological 

 applications outside the domain of medicine. We think of the 

 low types of humanity which are parasitic on the high types, and 

 we recall types which, in becoming parasitic, become low types 

 A turn of thought conjures up a view of the parasitic trades, 

 which, though sources of prosperity, really destroy more life than 

 they produce." Indeed, Colonel Firth states later that " the 

 whole trend of social evolution points to there being less room in 

 the future for parasites in the body politic." An unfortunate 

 application of this thenie is to be found in trade conditions at the 

 present day, where the producer and the consumer do not reap 

 adequate benefit, but undue profits seem to go to the middleman. 

 In communities where the wealth accumulates in the hands of 

 non-producers, there can be no real stability, material or moral. 



Another important matter is over-attention to and over- 

 indulgence in athletics in our schools and universities, and this is 

 threatening even to sap our vitality and progi-ess. At the present 

 time, sport is over-emphasised and is praised in the Press in such 

 inflated and exaggerated terms as can only be described as 

 ridiculous on calm reflection. Such statements are also' spoiling 

 and degrading our language. These remarks may be considered 

 to be severe, but I would respectfully refer to the important 

 American weekly, Science, of May 19th, 1922, wherein is a paper 

 entitled " Science or Athletics? " by Professor E. G. Mahin, read 

 before the section on Chemical Education at a meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in 

 April. In America athletics appear to take a more prominent part 

 in college life than here, but the warning is needed. Professor 

 Mahin writes: " We respectfully submit that in the effort of the 

 college to administer courses of training, either routine or research 



* Journal of lioyal Army Medical Corps, xxv, pp. 664 — 666. 



