68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the spiritual to preeminently dominate the carnal impulses, it be- 

 comes sufficiently materialistic in practise to advise the believer to fast 

 or at least to substitute fish for meat in his dietary. The individual 

 who has not learned to regulate his diet to his physical and spiritual 

 needs and has not acquired the habit of chewing his food thoroughly, 

 has failed to pass his elementary examination in the field of applied 

 ethics. The physical, mental and moral deterioration beginning in the 

 second or third generation of families which have suddenly acquired 

 wealth may be attributed primarily to the luxurious diet no less than 

 to the other extravagant ways of living. 



Still another line of argument in favor of the universities paying 

 more attention to the study of the brain is supplied by the mal-adjust- 

 ment of great numbers of persons to the unsuitable environment into 

 which they have been driven by the impulses and ambitions awakened 

 by an education ill-adapted to their individual brain capacity. Public 

 charities, missions, settlement work, are all agencies tending to allevi- 

 ate some of the sufferings of mankind, but we seek in vain for the signs 

 of any organized effort to prevent the perversion of the mental activi- 

 ties of great numbers of individuals which has come about from lack of 

 proper advice and instruction in regard to the selection of an educa- 

 tion which will not disturb the balance of the nervous system and 

 generate undesirable impulses, exceeding the inhibitory capacity of the 

 individual. 



The number of those suffering from mental disorders is appalling. 

 In Great Britain there are nearly 70,000 idiots, over 47,000 lunatics, 

 23,000 criminals, nearly 10,000 deaf and dumb from childhood, 60,000 

 prostitutes, 62,000 epileptics, more than 88,000 backward children and 

 18,000 habitual vagrants, and many of these degenerates are engaged 

 in breeding offspring! In institutions in the United States we have 

 more than 145,000 individuals in well-advanced stages of alienation 

 and over 120,000 feeble-minded persons, and it is safe to assume that if 

 all the patients suffering from psychoses were actually brought under 

 observation, these figures would be greatly increased. The present cost 

 to the country of partially providing for the maintenance of this army 

 of incapables is well over $40,000,000 a year. 



One of the most important functions connected with the work of a 

 department of mental hygiene would be the encouragement given to the 

 investigation of all questions connected with the anatomy and physiol- 

 ogy of the nervous system, along the lines where these studies could 

 not be prosecuted to a greater advantage in the laboratories and clinics 

 of our medical schools. Not only in this, but in all other departments 

 the selection of directors from among those who have shown themselves 

 capable of carrying on original investigations should be insisted upon. 

 Only when this spirit has permeated the whole department, from the 



