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At every period of life man has his special uses. We could 
not do without old men and old women. Excellent work is and 
has been done by healthy old people. Unfortunately, however, 
the conditions of life prevent us from having as many useful 
aged people as we ought to have. So very many break down 
mentally before the body is worn out, and so become comparatively 
useless. 
If a man breaks down at sixty and becomes incapable ot 
further work, there is a direct loss of the remaining years of his 
life. His breaking down is due either to inherent weakness, 
overstraining of his power, or lack of proper cultivation, or to an 
unnatural mode of life. 
It is necessary, before proceeding further, to define what 
perfect health is. 
1. Labouring under no disease hereditary or acquired. 
2. The physiological processes going on without strain—to 
wit, there being no exhaustion of any particular organ. 
The high death rate in children is accounted for— 
1. By hereditary influence. 
2. Industrial conditions. 
a. Mothers having to work. 
b. Irregularity of employment of parents. 
c. Errors of training for mothers. 
d, Density of population 
After examining at some length the general causes for death 
rate among children, the lecturer expressed his opinion that the 
chief cause of infantile mortality was hereditary, but the lack 
through industrial conditions of maternal care was also largely 
responsible. In the case of adults, irregularity of work, climatic 
conditions, the employment of young females in industry to the 
manifest neglect of a proper training for home duties. The 
density and overcrowding of the population all tended to produce 
a state of things totally opposed to healthy condition, therefore 
it is probable that infants die as the result of such surroundings, 
whereas if their homes were in the country they would live. 
The unnatural environment, too, when man’s estate is reached, 
leads to the breaking down, sooner or later, and the stronger has 
to help the weaker. This necessitates the stronger having to 
double their productive power to the injury of themselves and 
their offspring, and the eventual result must be a nation of 
weaklings, for even with all the appliances of science, it is 
doubtful whether hereditary disease can ever be cured. 
Man was born to live to seventy, and if he dies before, an error 
has been committed; either the conditions of life have compelled 
him to work too hard or to live in a poisonous town ; his death is 
due to something other than natural decay. 
Ee 
