A REJOINDER 129 



manifestation of tubercular disease in the absence of 

 those environmental agents which call it forth, there 

 still remains the very important question, Can we 

 ensure that these particular agents will always be 

 absent ? Is it tolerably certain that at no future 

 period in our history circumstances may not arise 

 which will render it impossible for this artificially 

 imposed environment to be any longer maintained ? 

 Let us look, while yet we have time, along one road 

 which opens out to a vista, where danger is spelt at 

 every point along its view. 



I think the possibility, which I have just described, 

 of a crucial struggle between the East and West, 

 whose respective denizens are evolving under very 

 different conditions of sanitation, suggests that before 

 it is too late Western Civilisation should mark time, 

 and take heed of the direction and velocity of its 

 movement. For it should never be forgotten that 

 every improvement in the sanitary conditions of life 

 enables yet weaker and less resistant stocks to live 

 and propagate. It is, therefore, possible to raise the 

 quest of sanitation into a fetich, and under the guise 

 of a false health to hide the fact, that we are by 

 invidious and stealthy methods ensuring the ultimate 

 destruction of our race as a dominating factor in the 

 affairs of the world. 



But improved sanitation of the co-operative and 

 compulsory type does more than save the weak. It 

 saves the innately dirty people from the consequences 

 of their habits. I do not think anyone who has gone 

 into the question will doubt that, with but few 

 exceptions, dirtiness and untidiness of personal habit 



