A REJOINDER ]27 



the defective quality which renders a subject 

 liable to tuberculosis is not merely manifesting 

 itself in another way ? We may, perhaps, escape 

 the toll which Nature demands from us at one gate 

 on the road of life, but she will have it from us at 

 another. 



Then there is the question of correlation. Does 

 the tubercular diathesis accompany some other 

 defective quality ? Here we have no certain answer. 

 But we have a general experience, and there is no 

 doubt that in some families this diathesis is merely 

 the expression of a much wider constitutional defect. 

 It is accompanied by a frail physique, a slender hold 

 on life, and a lassitude of action. Now, any improve- 

 ment in the environment which saves this type of 

 tuberculous person, also propagates a race charac- 

 terised by the possession of the correlative qualities. 

 Is that desirable ? I imagine not. The truth is, 

 in our desire to save life and reduce death, at all costs, 

 we are being carried too far. We are running grave 

 risks. Let us try to foresee one of them. 



At a certain, ill-defined stage in the history of 

 the world, it could have been said that the march 

 of Civilisation and of Empire was Westward. There 

 are not wanting the signs that it will again turn 

 Eastward. Suppose it does. Before the West 

 relinquishes its sceptre to the East, its retention will 

 be fought for on many a bloody battlefield. But 

 bullets and sabres are not the only instruments of 

 destruction, even on a battlefield. Epidemic diseases 

 play their part. While the West, according to Dr. 

 Cobbett's environmental doctrine, has been saving 



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