August i8, 1904] 



NA TURE 



he is chairman of the Ordnance Committee of the War 

 Office. 



For some time he held the distinguished position of 

 one of the secretaries of the Royal Society. 



Throughout his life the search of truth in nature 



has been his main endeavour. 



" The works of the Lord are great 

 Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein " 



is the motto he has prefixed to his collected papers. 

 His friends and pupils throughout the world hope that 

 for many years to come he may continue as their guide 

 in that search which he has already made so fruitful. 



PHYSIQUE AND EDUCATION. 

 Physical Deterioration, its Causes and the Cure. By 



A. Watt Smyth. Pp. xv + 318. (London: John 



.Murray, 1904.) Price 65. net. 

 Les Exercises physiques ct le Diveloppement in- 



tellectuel. By Angelo Mosso. Pp. 294. (Paris : 



F^lix Alcan, 1904.) Price 6 francs. 



MRS. WATT SMYTH'S book performs good 

 service in directing the attention of that larger 

 public who imagine Blue-books to be dull, and who 

 avoid the study of health reports, to the national health. 

 Those great weaknesses and injuries that beset the 

 infant citizen have hitherto caused quite insufficient 

 concern. Most of the drawbacks to healthy living here 

 set out were proclaimed by the International Congress 

 of Hygiene in 189 1 ; so slow has been the progress in 

 remedying them that we must hope these chapters 

 will be more widely read than those transactions have 

 been. Evidently many good sources of evidence have 

 been carefully searched ; even the sociologist may seek 

 here for references, and while the frequent change of 

 theme has necessitated brevity, the most salient facts 

 and features receive due prominence. 



So manifest and so important is the prevalence of 

 physical unfitness in children, as observed first by Dr. 

 Francis Warner, as recently reported on by a Royal 

 Commission (making a striking contrast between the 

 children of Aberdeen and those of Edinburgh), and 

 as now under consideration by a Departmental Com- 

 mittee, that the causes and cure thereof call for this 

 volume, whether or no a " general deterioration " be 

 proved. The argument that e.xcessive urban infant 

 death rate is evidence of deterioration of survivors 

 when illustrated by the annual mortality table of the 

 whole of England (where up to the last decennium 

 such mortality has declined) is an argument against 

 so many individuals deteriorating as formerly. So 

 •' Individual Physical Deterioration " would seem a 

 more appropriate title for this work. In any case, the 

 comparison of the present day low expectation of life 

 .U Southwark (thirty-six years) with Hampstead (fifty 

 years) is far more important than the consideration 

 of the wretchedness of sixty years ago, when White- 

 chapel had an expectation of only thirty-one years. 



Here are well told the many wants on which unfit- 

 ness depends. First, in the mother, want of know- 

 ledge and want of means ; in the infant, want of 

 NO. 18 1 6, VOL. 70] 



natural or of proper food; in the pupil, want of 

 sufficient food. Next comes want of air, overcrowd- 

 ing (insufficiently defined), want of school and bed- 

 room ventilation. Further, rest is wanting to the 

 mother, and still more wanting to those children who 

 labour; recreation is wanting to the children, and in 

 the long unbroken hours of school work. Exercise 

 is needed along with recreation. 



Such are the causes of physical unfitness ; cure lies 

 in their removal. In general, two means of remedy 

 are proposed — legislative measures and increase of 

 instruction and knowledge. Perhaps the legislative 

 proposals of the book evince warm-hearted suggestion 

 rather than practical statesmanship ; if there be not 

 in these measures danger of relieving parents of their 

 responsibility, one may yet say with Dr. Bulstrode, 

 the State cannot move except in response to a 

 decisively expressed public opinion, and to load the 

 machinery of public health administration with un- 

 popular measures is, as has been amply exemplified 

 in the history of public health, a futile and eminently 

 unscientific proceeding. To take a current instance; 

 existing powers of making and enforcing by-laws on 

 the overcrowding in the east of London are not carried 

 out, and have not been thoroughly tried. 



We welcome in this book a beginning of the other 

 means of remedy — increased knowledge and instruc- 

 tion. A spread of the information here given may 

 render possible in future legislative measures for which 

 the nation is not yet ripe. 



We agree with the writer that " the root of the 

 national unfitness lies in the health of the mother 

 during pregnancy and the feeding of infants during 

 their earliest years " ; and we read, " out of the children 

 (Sheffield) under two years who had died during the 

 summer of diarrhoea, death in 21 per cent, resulted 

 from the inexperience or ignorance of the mothers." 



The better health and physical development (and 

 lower infantile death rate) of Jewish children Dr. Hall 

 " attributes mainly to the fact that Jewish women are 

 better nourished during pregnancy, are more anxious 

 to suckle their children, are more attentive to them 

 in early childhood and feed them with more intelli- 

 gence." The Royal Commission on Alien Immigra- 

 tion was similarly told, " the difference in the death 

 rate is due to the better care the inhabitants take of 

 themselves and their mode of life," and an appendix 

 shows death rate of infants, Whitechapel 144, Lime- 

 house 204, Whitechapel having nearly double the 

 overcrowding, but 31 per cent, aliens as compared 

 to 3 per cent, in the Limehouse population. Further, 

 while for ten years the aliens and overcrowding had 

 been increasing in Whitechapel, infant deaths had 

 fallen 15 per cent. In Limehouse, with no such in- 

 creases, deaths had risen 7 per cent. The explanation 

 of these striking figures lies in the fact that the over- 

 crowding of Whitechapel is caused by ahens — for the 

 most part Jews. No laws will remedy ignorance; let 

 us first take the mote out of our own eye and learn a 

 lesson from the Jewess. 



Mrs. Watt Smyth has convinced us that the teach- 

 ing of girls is the key of the position, and her vivid 



