520 president's address. — section gi. 



But, besides the loss of efficiencv, the direct cost of disease also 

 .needs to be estimated. This demands the consideration of the effect 

 of transfers of accumulations of wealth, and also the total cost of 

 general and preventive medicine to a community. 



The variation of efficiency with age is a question of importance, 

 which can be resolved by appropriate statistical treatment, and also 

 tht, variation witli natural and acquired endowments both physical 

 and mental. 



Attempts have recently been made, so far with very partial 

 success, to ascertain the cost of various form.s of education, both 

 general and special, designed to qualify for the various occupations of 

 life. And it is evident that the consideration of any equitable adjust- 

 ment of the social system must take account of such matters to an 

 extent which hitherto has not been attempted. 



11. Hygiene. — Every year recently has brought into consciousness 

 a clearer i-ecognition of the value of public hygiene. Here the 

 statistical method furnishes the evidence of that value. Collaterally 

 with improvement in systems of water-supply and sewerage, and im- 

 piovement in milk-supply, there has been an improvement in city 

 death rates ; and especially in rates of infantile mortality. Notwith- 

 standing this, the complete analysis of the total economic effect has 

 yet to be made. 



12. Eugenics. — The statistical and biological study of the laws of 

 tiansmission of qualities has given birth to Avhat has been called 

 Eugenics. On the abstract side of this subject, statistics have proved 

 of singular value, while on the practical side, it is becoming increas- 

 ingly manifest that the systematic study of racial development is of 

 the highest order of importance. This study must embrace both 

 physical and psychical elements. On the physical side it has recently 

 been proposed to obtain measurements of school children of the 

 Australian States, and to have these analysed at one centre. If this 

 work be done systematically and accurately, the drift of the variable 

 measurements of our commtmity will be disclosed long before it can 

 be popularly recog-nised. A similar remark applies to the psychical 

 aspects of our development. In the greater matters of human conduct, 

 response to instincts may perhaps be regarded as a safer guide than 

 the counsels of systematised eugenics : nevertheless, there is every 

 reason to believe that with advancing knowledge and improved educa- 

 tion, eugenic considerations will enter more largely into the formation 

 of that powerful and ever-operative influence upon human conduct — 

 viz., public opinion. Thus, the instinctive response to public opinion 

 will tend to conform to what can be learnt through statistical investi- 

 gation of the trend of human life. It is in the trend of masses, not in 

 the idiosyncrasies of units, that the well-being or disaster of the com- 

 munity will be foreshadowed. 



13. The Reach of Eugenics. — How far-reaching is the matter of a 

 statistical study of the human being is disclosed by such results as 

 show the impoi'tance of the hereditary factor in evolution. "Definite 

 characters for good or ill, whether dominant or recessive, do not dis- 

 appear in Mendelian inheritance. They persistently appear in their 

 original 'purity'," says Professor Thomson, of Aberdeen,* and he 



* Heredity, 1908, p. 376. 



