416 



viduals from extremes, from the frigid and torrid zones, are not adapted 

 to changes. If the Esliimo and the South Sea Islander exchanged places 

 they would quickly perish. 



In his evolution man has passed thi-ough different stages of civiliza- 

 tion, or as some one has said domestication. At first he was a hunter and 

 fisher, living an outdoor life like the animals about him. This was fol- 

 lowed by the pastoral stage. Then came the agricultural in which for the 

 first time he had a fixed home, and that meant to keep alive his old and 

 decrepit and sick ; many house diseases now found favorable opportunity 

 for propagating themselves. In the handicraft stage where men were 

 confined indoors the conditions for the propagation of house diseases be- 

 came still more favorable. During the present industrial stage man has 

 actively countei'acted the ravages of many specific diseases, has prncli- 

 cally banished some, but many still flourish unchecked. Common ill 

 health that can not be dignified by the name of disease is perhaps more 

 prevalent twlay than ever. Many people are not adapted to domestica- 

 tion, to a life under indoor conditions, in short, to an artificial climate. 



In many regions of the globe man still leads the simple outdoor life 

 (in the interior of Africa, Australia, South America), in others men aro 

 massed in cities. City life means a many-sided contact with all sorts of 

 causes of ill health and disease and the woeding-out process. The process 

 of adaittation is attended witli great loss of life, as just mentioned. Here 

 again we see a survival of the fittest, those best able to live under un- 

 sanitary environment. But fittest does not mean best — the inhabitants of 

 overcrowded filthy Chinese and East Indian cities do not head tlie list 

 (if best men, most highly civilized. 



Dismissing far away people and confining ourselves to man at hoim^. 

 we again see how the process of adaptation has been at work in iiroducin,' 

 tlie fittest, but not necessarily the best. 



We trace our ancestry to Europe. Parentage goes back either to 

 country or city ancestry. The ancestors of some of us have always led 

 a quiet isolated rural life, othei's were more or less in contact with city 

 life. A few have ancestoi-s who for generations lived under crowded city 

 conditions. City life means a many-sided exposure to all sorts of weeding- 

 out factors. 



The man among us wiio has p('rii;i]is undergone the weeding-out 

 process attending citj- life most thoroughly is the Jew wlio traces his an- 



