Ott. £2, 1871] 

’ weakness of physical constitution, which causes women 
to dread the dangers of a large family, while “ their 
delicate organisation breaks down in bringing into the 
world one, two, or three children,’ then undoubtedly 
greater physical vigour might remove some of the moral 
obstacles to increase of population, We cannot regard 
moral causes, or, in the words of an American writer, the 
“feeling that has grown up of late years with respect to 
offspring,” as without importance. Is it possible, for in- 
stance, that certain circles of American society have come 
to resemble the Hungarians, in actually priding them- 
selves on their small families? If any such feel- 
ing as this should exist, it is not likely to be ex- 
pelled but by the supremacy of some stronger and 
nobler sentiment. Such might be found, one would 
have thought, in the sentiment of posterity, that pride 
in the destiny of their race, which occupies the popular 
imagination among Americans toa greater extent than 
in any other nation. Are the “native Americans” pre- 
pared to surrender the future of their country to foreign 
immigrants? This must be the case unless the tide should 
turn. At present, indeed, we hear only of a stationary 
‘not a diminishing population, and were such a community 
standing alone, it might do no more than realise the ideal 
“stationary state” of the Malthusian philosophers. But, 
unfortunately, the other elements of population are not 
stationary, and to stand still in the midst of growth is to 
be choked. Such a prospect can hardly be a matter of 
indifference to the race which is thus threatened with 
extinction ; nor is it on several grounds without import- 
ance to the world at large. In the first place the New Eng- 
land Puritan stock is one possessed of many noble quali- 
ties which the world can ill afford to lose, and, secondly, 
it is hard to see where this process is to stop. If the 
influence of the 7z/zew has reduced the descendants of a 
people so mentally and physically vigorous as the English 
colonists of the seventeenth century, to a state of infe- 
cundity and “physical degeneracy” (to use Dr. Allen’s 
words), what are the prospects for later colonists, whether 
of English, Irish, or German descent? They willsoon be 
“native Americans,” and subject, as we must suppose, to 
the same laws of change. Is transplantation of a race, as 
Knox and others thought, impossible? This question is 
neither raised nor answered by Dr. Allen, but it is in- 
evitably suggested by the gloomy pictures which he 
draws. His pamphlets, in spite of much repetition, and 
an occasional superficiality of treatment, are worth read- 
ing by those who are interested in the important problems 
which he discusses, 

OUR BOOK SHELF 
National Health. By Henry W. Acland, F.R.S., &c. 
(Oxford and London : James Parker and Co., 1871.) 
Dr. ACLAND’s pamphlet should be read in connec- 
tion with the report of the Royal Sanitary Commis- 
sion, of which he was a member, and some of whose 
recommendations have already been embodied in a 
Government measure. Not that it is intended as an 
exposition or defence of that report, but rather as an expo- 
sition of the general principles of sanitary legislation and 
reform. It would be impertinent to say that in knowledge 
and enlightenment Dr. Acland is on the level of his 
important theme, but we may point out as his special | 
NATURE 


463 

qualification for treating a subject of such complex rela- 
tions, a certain comprehensiveness of mind, which does 
not allow him to leave untouched either the moral or the 
material, the scientific or the political, aspects of national 
health. We think it the more important to draw attention 
to this valuable quality because it is so often wanting in 
professional, perhaps especially in medical writers, and 
the want is so often a source of weakness. Dr. Acland 
does not forget, in treating of national health, the depen- 
dence of disease on poverty or of poverty on over-popu- 
lation ; and insists strongly on the often-forgotten princi- 
ples of Malthus. It is instructive to contrast the dangers 
he points out with the apprehensions of an entirely oppo- 
site kind entertained by Dr. Nathan Allen. On this side 
of the Atlantic we dread the results of too rapid multipli- 
cation ; on the other side their fear is lest, among a certain 
class, this danger should have been too completely averted. 
But both would agree that the property of fertility does not 
always belong to those whom we should think best fitted 
to be the progenitors of the race to come. Dr. Allen 
laments the decay ofthe highly cultivated and intellectual 
New Englanders ;.while Dr. Acland, quoting Mr, Galton, 
points out the possibility of “the races best fitted to play 
their part on the stage of life being crowded out by the 
incompetent, the ailing, and the desponding,” merely in 
consequence of a reckless system of early marriages. This 
very fact, we may remark, of the rapid multiplication of 
the “ incompetent and ailing ” is of itself fatal to the theory 
of population advanced by the American physician. 
In his remarks on the regulation of public health, Dr. 
Acland shows the same breadth of view as in treating the 
more scientific aspect of the subject, and his wise, we 
might say, statesmanlike advice contrasts with the too 
absolute and inconsiderate claims put forward by some 
medical and sanitary reformers. It should never be for- 
gotten that the power of seeing even the plainest evils 
cannot go beyond the general standard of public enlighten- 
ment, and that the power of removing them must be 
limited by the social and political conditions of the 
country in which we live. The following quotation 
appears to us to contain very sound advice :— 
“Two things and two only remain to be done. 
“First. To continue to interest intelligently the mass 
of the people in sanitary progress, and to interest them 
more systematically. 
“England must rule herself in these as in all other 
matters. The time is gone when people can be dragooned 
into cleanliness and virtue. We hear that the middle 
class of England is inefficient, the guardians of the poor 
bad, and the working classes ignorant. If so they are 
still the people ; they and their children pay the penalty 
of disease and of vice. Show them, truly and without exag- 
geration, the source of avoidable disease and of destruc- 
tive vice; they will abate it. Bring the knowledge to 
their doors, they have heart and will; give the power by 
enactment, and the work is done. 
“Second. To establish such a health department in 
the metropolis as shall with certainty appreciate the grow- 
ing wants of the people, as shall bring in bills to meet 
their wants, and shall disseminate information and advice 
without stint to every part of the country.” 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[Zhe Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his Correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. | 
Local Scientific Societies 
THE following statement appeared a short time ago in an 
article in Nature. ‘Throughout the country we find societies, 
field clubs, local museums, &c., all of which are more or less 
actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, local inquiries, or 
