PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 613 



learned to-day that we have been dreaming, that we are deluders 

 or deluded, and that this so-called history must be relegated to the 

 realm of fiction. At Manila I found that the American ladies there 

 begin card parties at 8 o'clock in the morning, continue them at intervals 

 during the day, attend the theatre, hold suppers after, and finish ofi 

 the day or the night with balls, &c., and then, at the end of about 

 two years of this life, they begin to complain that they feel the climate 

 trying. They may now feel assured, on the strength of Mr. Macfie's 

 paper, that the tropical climate is not merely trying — it is impossible.* 



I would select and examine a few illustrations to show the sort of 

 logic and science employed by Mr. Macfie in support of what I take 

 to be his thesis : that the tropics, or certain large tracts thereof, cannot 

 be exploited by white labor. 



1. In referring to a report of mine, he says it contains nothing in 

 support of an assertion I made. ^Vhat was the assertion ? According 

 to himf it was that " there is nothing in the whole science and practice 

 of medicine to show that white men, as individuals and races, cannot 

 live in the tropics." Now, what sort of support does Mr. Macfie wish 

 me to bring forward for my assertion ? I am at a loss to imagine, 

 unless he expects me to embody a whole treatise on tropical hygiene 

 in the compass of a short report. If, on the other hand, he refers to 

 a supposed contention or affirmation about the ability of certain white 

 races to bear the climatic severity of the tropics with greater immunity 

 than colored people, which he attributes to me, I have to say that I do 

 not recognise my sentiments in the garb in which he clothes them. Else- 

 where he refers to what he calls my admission, that it is extremely rare 

 " for whites to remain for lengthened periods in the Australian tropics." 

 The words he professes to quote do not occur in my report. I have 

 never used them anywhere. I did say something about the length of 

 time certain classes of people remained in the Northern Territory ; 

 but that had nothing to do with the subject of disease or inability to 

 work there, nor had it any general reference to the Australian tropics. 



* On this subject I should like to add that Major-General Wood, Governor of one 

 of the Philippine provinces, says, " A moral Hfe, with plenty of hard work, 

 vs'ill be found to counteract in most cases the so-called demoralising effects of 

 the Phihppine climate." The Commissioner of Public Health for the 

 Philippines writes thus, " Cantlie observes that about two years are required 

 for acclimation of the white man in the tropics, after which good health is a 

 reasonable expectation. Calvert makes a similar observation. These views 

 seem to be borne out by statistics of the Board of Health for the Philippine 

 Islands." Again, he says, "Americans connected with the pubUc service, 

 whether engaged upon work in offices or upon work requiring their presence 

 in the open air, have probably, on the average, accomplished more in the 

 Islands than is ordinarily accomplished at home in similar lines of work." 



f The words in my report were : — " The broad question is often put, ' Can white 

 men, as individuals or races, live in the tropics ? ' There is nothing, so far 

 as I can find, in the whole science and practice of medicine to show that they 

 cannot. On the contrary, all the facts of hygiene tend to prove that they can." 

 It is customary for scientific people, when conducting a scientific discussion, 

 to put a writer's or speaker's actual words within the inverted commas when 

 commas are employed. Such a custom tends to maintain a proper under- 

 standing in relation to the subject under discussion. I believe this custom 

 is not unknown in literary circles. 



