THE CURE OF PHYSICAL DETERIORATION 449 



to be quite as resistant and prolific as the Jews, and it will hardly 

 be maintained that they are a specially favoured or well-trained 

 race. 



734. It follows that urban conditions, except perhaps in rare 

 and isolated instances, do not cause deterioration of the germ-plasm, 

 but merely of the individual exposed to them. As far as the 

 evidence indicates, the child of peasant parents, if reared in the 

 slums, suffers quite as much as the offspring of a town-bred 

 family. Indeed the survival of the town family indicates some 

 degree of fitness to the environment. It must be borne in mind 

 that the physical dangers of urban life arise mainly from microbic 

 disease, which, though less concentrated, is by no means absent, 

 even in the most sparsely populated localities in Britain. The 

 great cities of the present day have grown from the hamlets and 

 villages of the past, and their slow increase has enabled the race to 

 adapt itself to the altered conditions. Even now our villages are 

 training the race for existence in cities. 



735. The conclusion we reach, then, is that the physical 

 deterioration which accompanies urban life may be removed in a 

 single generation by improving the conditions of life under which 

 the poor dwell by providing better food, housing, sanitation, and 

 greater opportunities for active games to the young. Much, 

 indeed, has been done already. The task before us is difficult, 

 but not nearly so difficult as is supposed by biometricians and 

 medical men. We need not resort to selection, unless we wish to 

 evolve rapidly a race capable of vigorous life in slums. It would 

 be an easier and quicker proceeding to abolish the slums. We 

 need not wait till the imaginary innate deterioration caused by 

 generations of degradation is remedied by generations spent in 

 better surroundings. Our main difficulties arise from the selfish- 

 ness of the governing classes, the intemperance of the poor, and the 

 ignorance of both. If all classes understood the causes to which 

 physical deterioration is due, desired its removal, and were willing 

 to work and spend with that object in view ; if we saw to it that 

 even the children of drunkards had proper food, care, housing, and 

 exercise, physical deterioration would cease to characterize sections 

 of the people, though we should still see it, as amongst the upper 

 classes at present, in individuals who were congenitally incapable 

 of attaining average physical development. 



736. Microbic disease, the principal source of physical injury 

 and death amongst civilized peoples, affords several practical 

 problems of great interest and importance. In combating it, two 



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