418 



Wo have not yet roachod a stai^e wlicrr we .iudye tlie salubrity of 

 a comnuiiiity by the amount of ill health, (tur statistics relate to deaths 

 — many individuals when fatally stricken leave the cities. The large in- 

 dustrial city overhung by smoke clouds has no use for the man over forty 

 or forty-five. ]Men are soon worn out. 



Besides people born in this country, natives sis we say, there are 

 those who come in directly from old P^uropean homes, immigrants of all 

 kinds. How do they fare in our country? Here again we nuist consider 

 the former life conditions and ancestral liistory and to what extent the 

 weeding-out process has been operative. The conditions for existence in 

 the new home may be better or worse. 



Tliere is an old saying. The good die young. I do not know where 

 that saying originated but I feel sure it is one based on city life. Such 

 a saying is diametrically opposed to the l»elief in the survival of the 

 fittest. The man best adapted to live in slums is not the liest type of 

 man — if this were so the inhabitants of crowded Asiatic cities would 

 liead the list. 



Tliere is another saying, Mens sana in corpore sano. yet when we 

 study biograpliy we Hud that many of the world's greatest minds had 

 nuich ill health, some constantly comitlained. ^Yllat makes a lu-.-ilthy 

 body? Must or should we contrast healthy or health with disease? or 

 would it be better to contrast it with ill h(>allhV The jihysician con- 

 stantly meets people who have ill health and yet no diseas(>. In general 

 it may be said that health results from country life, ill health from city 

 life. 



When we study the lixcs of city peojile who (•(iniphiin nuich of ill 

 health we may lind that their bodies are ■■healthy" enougli but that there 

 is a reaction to an .•ibnornial environment, particularly abnormal air con- 

 ditions; there are all sorts of symptoms of ill health. If we carefully 

 study life histories of indi^idujiis who have had uiiicli ill lu'alth we may 

 liud that although they had ill health in the city they lived comfortably 

 under simjile country lite CMiiditions. We m;iy cdine lo llie conclusion 

 that symptoms of ill health unist b<' regarded as \v;ii"uiiigs from nature to 

 be heeded. Formerly it was assumed that ■■neuralgia is a cr\ for i)ure 

 l»lo((d ;" today we may safely assume that most symjitoms of ill health ii! 

 city people ;ii'c iries fur pure air. 



Wlial distinguishes cily from cnnnlrx life? < >ne could (piickly make 

 n long list of antitheses, beginning witii <-i'o\vding in the city and living 



