410 HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY 



sordid and guilty memories, with a past as blameless as 

 that of the woman who has put her trust in him. And 

 let him realize that marriage itself is to impose denials as 

 well as confer privileges. 



What has been said will be not at all weakened if it is 

 coupled with a protest against sexual squeamishness, the 

 cultivation of the belief that the whole matter is base and 

 evil. It is not well to quarrel in this way with a part of 

 normal human inheritance. Specialists in nervous diseases 

 find this unwholesome attitude linked with discontented 

 and ineffective living; it often defeats its own purpose. 

 What is to be striven for is not the annulling of instinct 

 but its regulation; or, to use Richard Cabot's fine expres- 

 sion, its consecration. To say that the companionship of 

 marriage should be on a high plane is to utter only a half- 

 truth; it should, rather, be upon all planes. 



Conclusion. The plea that has just been made is for 

 symmetry, for right proportion, for balance. By an 

 extension of the same teaching to all of life we are brought 

 back to the requisites of hygienic living which have been 

 named. Given a body of normal potentialities, one's task 

 is to nourish it, to set it to work and play, to grant it rest 

 as needed, and to provide it with an environment favor- 

 able to its maintenance and activities. Discussion of the 

 environment falls for the most part outside a text-book of 

 physiology. We have touched upon one of its aspects in 

 speaking of ventilation. Its larger problems draw our 

 attention from the individual, who is central in physi- 

 ology, to the contact of human beings in communities. 

 This is the subject matter of works on Public Health. 



It is most desirable that the reader who comes to the 

 end of an account such as has been attempted here, 

 dealing with the body living by itself, pass on to learn 

 something of preventive medicine. He will find the 

 story one of absorbing interest, rich in personalities and 

 courageous achievement. He will come to realize how 

 the relative security of life in our time stands contrasted 

 with its uncertainty in all earlier ages and how bright 

 are the promises for the future. 



