418 



We have not yet reached a stage where we judge the salubrity of 

 a community by the amount of ill health. Our statistics relate to deaths 

 — many individuals when fatally stricken leave the cities. The large in- 

 dustrial city overhung by smoke clouds has no use for the man over forty 

 or forty-five. Men are soon worn out. 



Besides people bom in this country, natives as we say, there are 

 those who come in directly from old European homes, immigrants of all 

 kinds. How do they fare in our country? Here again we must consider 

 the former life conditions and ancestral history and to what extent the 

 weeding-out process has been operative. The conditions for existence in 

 the new home may be better or worse. 



There is an old saying, The good die young. I do not know where 

 that saying originated but I feel sure it is one based on city life. Such 

 a saying is diametrically opposed to the belief in the sun'ival of the 

 fittest. The man best adapted to live in slums is not the best type of 

 man — if this were so the inhabitants of crowded Asiatic cities would 

 head the list. 



There is another saying. Mens .«ana in corpore sano. yet when we 

 study biography we find that many of the world's greatest minds had 

 much ill health, some constantly complained. What makes a healthy 

 body? Must or should we contrast healthy or health with disease? or 

 would it be better to contrast it with ill health? The physician con- 

 stantly meets people who have ill health and yet no disease. In general 

 it may be said that liealth results from country life, ill lienlth from cit.v 

 life. 



Wiien we study tiie lives of city ]ioople who coniiil.iin much of ill 

 health we may find that their bodies are '•healthy" enough but that there 

 is a reaction to an abnormal environment, jjarticularly abnormal air con- 

 ditions; there are all sorts of symptoms of ill health. If we carefully 

 study life histories of individuals who have had much ill health we may 

 find that although they had ill health in the city they lived comfortably 

 under simple country life conditions. We may come to the <-onclusion 

 that symptoms of ill health must be regarded as warnings from nature to 

 be heeded. Formerly it was assumed tiiat "neuralgia is a cry for imro 

 blood;" today we may safely assume tliat most symptoms of ill health iv 

 city i)ooi»le are r-ries for pure air. 



What distinguisJies city from country life? One could quickly make 

 a long list of antitheses, beginning with crowding in the city and living 



