416 



viduals from oxtromes, from the frisirt and tDrrid zones, are not adapted 

 to changes. If the Eskimo and the South Sea Islander exchanixed phices 

 they would quickly perish. 



In his evolution man has passed through different stages of civiliza- 

 tion, or as some one has said domestication. At first ho was a hunter and 

 fisher, living an outdoor life like the animals about him. This was fol- 

 lowed by the pastoral stage. Then came the agricultural in which for the 

 first time he had a fixed home, and that meant to keep alive his old and 

 decrepit and sick ; many house diseases now found favorable opportunity 

 for propagating themselves. In the handicraft stage where men were 

 confined indoors the conditions for the propagation of house diseases be- 

 came still more favorable. During the present industrial stage man has 

 actively counteracted the ravages of many specific diseases, has prac;i- 

 cally banished some, but many still flourish unchecked. Common ill 

 health that can not be dignified by the name of disease is perhaps more 

 prevalent today than ever. Many people are not adapted to domestica- 

 tion, to a life under indoor conditions, in short, to an artificial climate. 



In many regions of the globe man still leads the simple outdoor life 

 (in the interior of Africa, Australia, South America), in others men ar>' 

 massed in cities. City life means a many-sided contact with all sorts of 

 causes of ill health and disease and the weeding-out process. The process 

 of adaptation is attended with great loss of life, as just mentioned. Here 

 again we see a survival of the fittest, those best able to live under un- 

 sanitary environment. But fittest does not mean best — the iidiabitants of 

 overcrowded filthy Chinese and East Indian cities do not head tlie list 

 of best men, most highly civilized. 



Dismissing far away people and confining ourselves to man at home. 

 we again see how the process of adaptation has been at work in i)nidn(in4 

 the fittest, but not necessarily the best. 



We trace our ancestry to Europe. Parentage goes liack cither to 

 country or city ancestry. The ancestors of some of us have always led 

 a quiet isolated rural life, others were more or less in contact with city 

 life. A few have ancestors who U>v gi'nc rations lived under crowded city 

 conditions. City life means a many-sided exi»osure to all sorts of weeding- 

 out factors. 



The man anmng us whn lias peiliaps inid('r;j;nne llie wecding-out 

 process attending city life uinsl t Imrnnu'lilx is the .Tew who traces his an- 



