SYMPOSIUM ON CONSERVATION 3 1 



COXSERVATION OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



J. X. HURTY, 



State Health Coininissioiier of Indiana. 



High authority says we are only 50 per cent efficient ; that we 

 live out less than one-half the natural duration of life; that we 

 consume twice as much food as is needed to maintain efficient 

 life; that we waste as much as we use, and that one-half of all 

 human beings born either die before reaching maturity or fall into 

 the defective, delinquent or dependent classes. In these facts w-e 

 find reasons why we waste the major portion of all our resources 

 and call it development. In these facts we find reasons for the 

 existence of robber taxation and predatory business. For, a 

 people who waste themselves will, of course, waste their natural 

 resources. Therefore, the first, the most important, the funda- 

 mental, conservation is the conservation of human vitality. A 

 people who cannot be brought to a realization of the fact that 

 they lead only half lives, and who, realizing, wnll not mend, will 

 show the nations to come what fools the present mortals were. 



LENGTH OF LIFE. 



Length of life is a resultant of strength. Honor thy father and 

 thy mother that thy days may be long in the land the Lord thy 

 God giveth thee. It is an honor and it is a strength for a nation 

 to have a low sickness and a low death rate, with their consequent 

 lengthened average duration of life. In India the average length 

 of life is twenty-five years ; in the United States, forty ; in Eng- 

 land, forty ; in Germany, forty-three, and in Sweden, forty-five. 

 The natural duration is one hundred years. ]\Ietchnikoflf, after 

 thirty years of study of disease and death, says only a very few 

 die natural deaths; most of mankind commit suicide; that is, 

 most people do not know how, or will not, conserve their vitality, 

 and thus results a greater or less period of disability and ineffi- 

 ciency, with premature death. Xature does no fooling ; she has 

 her laws, and they are enforced up to the handle. 



VIT.\L ASSETS. 



Comparison of vital and physical assets as measured by earning 

 power shows that the vital are three to five times the jjhysical. 



