212 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1287 



and most intellectual peoples is clearly set 

 forth. 



The author asks: 



Have religion, education, philanthropy and gov- 

 ernment failed? Shall we despair because the 

 church, the school, the charity organization, and 

 the state have not yet destroyed war, pestilence, 

 lust, greed, cruelty and selfishness? Far from it. 

 These agencies can not possibly play their proper 

 parts unless science comes to their aid. Not me- 

 chanical science, although that has its useful part 

 to play, but biological science. The sum and sub- 

 stance of biology is evolution, the Darwinian idea 

 that no type of living creature is permanent. 



In this book health is studied, not from the 

 standpoint of the physician, but from that of 

 the geographer and evolutionist. Fluctuations 

 in health, even the rise and decline of nations, 

 are found to be conditioned by changes in 

 the climate, in a small way, by the daily and 

 seasonal changes, and in the large by the 

 sveeeping climatic ones that historians have as 

 yet made so little use of in their interpreta- 

 tions of the fluctuations in national prosperity. 

 The expansion of great nations 

 is to a large extent determined by climatic condi- 

 tions. We talk, indeed, about trade, but back of 

 trade . . . lies the question of health. Health, 

 however, depends chiefly upon air, food and water ; 

 and all three of these depend upon climate. 

 Every nation that has been stimulated by an 

 energizing climate has apparently spread its power 

 over neighboring regions either by land or by sea. 



The author establishes his argument in a 

 study of Health and Business, followed by 

 other chapters on Business Cycles in Foreign 

 Countries, How Health does its "Work, and 

 Climate and Health. 



The prosperity curve follows the health curve 

 with no apparent regard for the crops. Contrary 

 as it seems to our established convictions, there ap- 

 pears to be no way of avoiding the conclusion that 

 economic cycles of adversity and prosperity in the 

 United States depend upon health far more than 

 upon any other factor. And health depends 

 largely upon the weather. 



Aside from a good inheritance, which is of 

 course the first essential, good health depends 

 upon three material factors — ^proper food, 

 proper drink and proper air and climate. 



Air is the first necessity of life. We may live 

 without food for days a.nd without water for 

 hours; but we can not live without air more than 

 a few minutes. Our air supply is therefore of more 

 importance than our food or water supply, and 

 good ventilation becomes the first rule of hygiene. 



Huntington says that it is not enough to 

 imderstand man's extremely sensitive adjust- 

 ment to temperature and humidity. We must 

 understand the effect of changes. A variable 

 climate has utterly different effects from a 

 uniform climate, even though both have the 

 same average temperature and humidity. 

 This thesis is developed in the section on 

 The Importance of Variability. One of the 

 best possible safeguards of health is constant 

 change of temperature. " We need to return 

 to the conditions under which the evolution of 

 our unclothed ancestors took place." 



In the chapter called The Voyage of Evolu- 

 tion, we read of the rise of the organisms into 

 man, and that the last glacial epoch was 

 peculiarly stimulating toward the mental de- 

 velopment of humanity. " The coldest places 

 were not favorable, but on their borders where 

 the climate was severe enough to be highly 

 bracing, but not benumbing, there occurred 

 an extraordinary development of brain power." 

 Then follow chapters in The Environment of 

 Mental Evolution, The Origin of Kew Types 

 among Animals, and The Origin of 'New 

 Types among Men. 



The culminating chapters of the book borne 

 next in order. First in the one on The Ex- 

 ample of Eome, we are told that mighty Rome 

 fell because "men's energy and power of seK- 

 control, as well as their crops, were suffering 

 at the behest of the inexorably changing 

 climate." The human world to the north was 

 disarranged by the same climatic change, and 

 " the barbarians were constantly swooping 

 down first on one part of the empire and then 

 on another." The enervated Eomans could 

 not overcome the more vigorous peoples of the 

 north. " So Rome fell, and her fall was fol- 

 lowed by that period of unfavorable climate 

 which is known as the Dark Ages." 



In the chapter on The Problems of Turkey, 

 we learn that: 



