2 86 THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. 



vichials were afflicted with one or other of these diseases, the 

 surgeon would become as necessary a part of man's E as oxygen, 

 and, under the artificial E supplied by him, the human race 

 might continue to flourish in undiminished vigour. Perhaps I 

 ought not to include stone under these remarks, since this 

 disease is not a local one ; but the other two, strangulated 

 hernia and ovarian cysts, are strictly localized, and from 

 either of these an individual may suffer, and yet be in all 

 other respects perfectly healthy. Indeed, the race is already 

 being modified by the artificial E of surgery in the manner 

 indicated, and not necessarily for the worse. Through untold 

 ages there has been a destruction of individuals suffering from 

 ovarian cysts and strangulated hernia, and a survival of those 

 only who are not afflicted with these diseases ; but the process 

 of elimination being now checked, the number of afflicted 

 individuals is necessarily increasing, and yet, since the neces- 

 sary artificial E in the shape of surgical skill is at hand, with 

 no necessarily deteriorating effects on the race. 



In like manner, it is theoretically possible for the mother 

 and infant to become permanently modified by the continued 

 use of the forceps. Such an artificial mode of delivery, carried 

 on through many generations, would necessarily lead, through 

 disuse, to diminished expulsive power of the womb, so that, in 

 course of time, delivery would become impossible without arti- 

 ficial help. The number of cases of post-partem haemorrhage 

 would probably be increased for a time, but a proper adapta- 

 tion to the new order of things would assuredly occur through 

 natural selection, and that, too, very possibly, without any 

 racial disadvantage, for the children, in their turn, would 

 become permanently adapted by a survival of those best able 

 to withstand the evil pressure-effects of the forceps. I am 

 not, of course, contending for an indiscriminate use of this 

 instrument ; any such adaptation as I hint at could only be 

 effected after a terrible sacrifice of women and children. I 

 merely wish to show that a perfect adjustment between the 

 S and such a highly artificial E might, in the end, result. 



The same line of argument applies to the artificial rearing 

 of children. The time may come — nay, I almost believe it will 

 come — when the mammas of woman shall have disappeared, and 



