415 



COMOSIS. 



( Abstract 



By Robert Hessler. 



This paper relates to an experiment on the part of Nature, one that 

 is going on all about us on a large scale, namely adapting man to live in 

 cities overhung with smog clouds, in other words, changing man from an 

 open air animal to an indoor air animal. 



Like all of Nature's adaptative processes, this one is attended with 

 great loss of life. The outcome is still a matter of doubt. It seems that 

 besides destroying individuals tliere is also a tendency to destroy the 

 species. To what extent man can counteract this weeding-ont process is 

 an Interesting as well as vital question. Besides great loss of life there 

 is much misery and ill health, all of which may be regarded as a reaction 

 to an abnormal environment. 



In the evolution of living matter we find organisms adapted to all 

 sorts of surroundings : lichens in the cold arctics and algae in the almost 

 boiling hot water of geysers; animals in water and on land, in deep caves 

 and high in the air. 



The naturalist and the evolutionist see a life and death struggle 

 eveiTwhere, plants fighting for possession of the soil, animals destroying 

 life and seeking to avoid destruction. Nothing is at peace, war every- 

 where, a struggle for existence with a survival of the fittest. Nature is 

 constantly at war with man, and civilized man himself is at war with 

 Nature trying to counteract her. 



Man as a species of animal is still undergoing the process of adapta- 

 tion, the law of the survival of the fittest is still in active operation. 

 Man has not even outgrown destroying his own kind ; the annual expend- 

 iture for war or being prepared for war is a burden that threatens to 

 ruin many a nation. 



Man as a species has adapted himself to a variety of surroundings 

 from pole to pole. In some regions there is perpetual winter, in other 

 places there is perpetual sununer. In the temperate zone there is an 

 alternation of half a year winter and half a year summer. Man indigenous 

 to the temperate zone is adapted to these changes in temperature. Indi- 



