836 REPORT — 1888. 



The following Reports and Papers were read : — 



1. Report of the Committee for investigating the effects of different occupa- 

 tions and employments on the Physical Developm,ent of the Human 

 Body. — See Reports, p. 100. 



2. Second Report of the Committee for ascertaining and recording the 

 localities in the British Islands in which evidences of the existence of 

 Prehistoric Inhabitants of the country are found. — See Reports, p. 289, 



3. The Constitutional Characteristics of those who dwell in large Towns, a» 

 relating to Degeneracy of Race. By G. B, Barbon, M.B., L.R.C.8.E., 

 M.R.C.8., Hon. Surgeon-Major. 



The conditions of life and their general surroundings largely influence and. 

 materially affect the physical and constitutional characteristics of town dwellers. 



The ' vital force,' or ' energy/ of the town dweller is inferior to the ' vital 

 force' of the country man. This is to be found in the general unfitness and 

 incapability of the town dweller to undergo continued violent exertion and the 

 long endurance of fatigue. The various factors at work night and day upon the 

 constitution of the poorer class dwelling in towns develop that form of disease 

 known as tuberculosis and pulmonary consumption. The town man is constitu- 

 tionally dwarfed, and his life is, man for man, weaker, shorter, and more uncertain 

 than that of the country man ; and the general tendency of his ailments is of the 

 asthenic type. 



I hold the opinion that the deterioration is more in physique, loss of muscular 

 power, attenuation of muscular fibre, loss of integrity of cell structure, and conse- 

 quent liability to the invasion of disease, rather than in actual stature of inch 

 measurement. The true causes are ' bad air ' and ' bad habits ' of life. My con- 

 tention is, that it is in the loss of physical tonicity, vital capacity, and vital force,, 

 that the degeneracy is found, and not in actual loss of stature. Included in the 

 phrase ' bad air,' I mean bad sanitation and over-crowding. 



For thirty years I have been working at this question, and the more I examine 

 it the more I am convinced of the accuracy of my conclusions. Sailors, fishermen, 

 agricultural labourers, and sportsmen are rarely the victims of consumption. The 

 chief cause of consumption is foul air. Air filled with some kinds of dust and other 

 noxious ingredients, produces a form of phthisis, as is seen in the Sheffield knife- 

 grinders, &c. Where people are huddled together in insanitary dwellings, such as 

 are found in the crowded courts and alleys of large towns, they are specially 

 prone to this disease. Experiments made by Dr. Brown-S6quard on animals 

 prove this. The value of fresh air in preventing disease was known to Hippocrates 

 Celsus, Aretseus, and Pliny. The fishermen of the Hebrides and Labrador are 

 specially exempt. 



The absence of pure air produces pallor and feebleness of constitutional vigour ; 

 the tissues of the human body lose their tonicity and contractile power ; the pent- 

 up denizens of courts and alleys in our large towns must necessarily degenerate in 

 physical competency ; and their offspring is of feeble type ; lowered vitality and 

 impoverished physique is the result. 



These observations deal only with those who habitually dwell in towns. 



The second factor is ' bad habits of life,' including the non-observance of rules of 

 health, and intemperance, with the various forms of ' impurity.' These tell a sad 

 story by smiting, with devitalising severity, the offspring to the third and fourth 

 generations, as well as the dnect victims who indulge in them. 



Imperfect feeding, and consequent malnutrition, causes degeneracy to be em- 

 phasised. The digestive capacity of the town dweller is not so perfect as that of 



