SECTION H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 
HEALTH AND PHYSIQUE THROUGH 
THE CENTURIES. 
ADDRESS BY 
F. C. SHRUBSALL, M.D., F.R.C.P., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
A CANADIAN meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science is of special interest to Section H, since it was in this Dominion 
that it first entered upon a separate existence forty years ago. 
In his Presidential Address to the Section at the Winnipeg Meeting, 
Professor Myres asked the question ‘What happens to Englishmen in 
city ‘‘ slums ”’ ?’ or, in other words, how are the peoples of Britain adapting 
themselves to modern conditions ? Are these conditions producing modi- 
fications in the racial constitution and qualities of the nation? The matter 
is one of importance to the older country, for over three-quarters of the 
population now reside in urban districts, and to the newer, since in the 
course of time industries must concentrate in favourable localities and 
close aggregates of population necessarily arise. 
The trend of events can be followed in outline from demographic data 
from about the fourteenth century, though the records are scanty until the 
nineteenth century. The main factors are urbanisation and industrialism, 
the combined effects of which can be seen best, though in an exaggerated 
form, in those individuals who follow certain trades, such as the textile in- 
dustry, which associate dense aggregation with, even at the best, unhealthy 
conditions of occupation. 
Indoor trades and factory life introduce very different physiological 
conditions from those under which the young peasant has his being. These 
factors tend to depress the vitality of the incomer from the country, while 
those born in the industrial township would be exposed to urban conditions 
throughout early as well as adult life, and have the further handicap in 
infancy of the lack of care inevitably associated with the factory employ- 
ment of the mothers. 
In addition, selection may in time sensibly modify the distribution of 
the various racial elements of the population. Psychological factors, too, 
come into play, for some types seem to prefer the freer life of the open 
spaces and leave a district as it becomes more densely settled; while 
others, who have no love or aptitude for solitude, migrate into the growing 
towns. The early settlers of the North American continent were drawn 
largely from areas occupied by Nordic peoples whose early history was 
that of hunting and fighting communities. As the eastern edge of the 
continent became settled, it was this type that was Jargely represented 
in the pioneers of the West. 
