36 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVIII. No. 441 



man will soon obtain compensation for that by holding the 

 body erect and taking proper breathing exercise. The main 

 point is to ascertain our unavoidable injurious conditions, 

 and to arrange the other conditions so that the tendency of 

 the whole is decidedly in our favor, and it will take a well- 

 developed man — and by that I mean a man having a phys- 

 ique between Brent's "medium" and "maximum" stan- 

 dards — but little time and ti-ouble to accomplish that. 

 These directions are very simple, easy to carry out, and in 

 one form or other are wilhin the power of each one of us. 

 But they effect a complete change in the conditions to which 

 the body is subjected, and to make that change with safety 

 it must be slowly, gradually, and uninterruptedly effected. 



I will now point out some cases in which physical devel- 

 opment is urgently required, and where its adoption will 

 render an immense public service. Take the case presented 

 by the army. Considerable attention has recently been di- 

 rected to the large amount of inferior physique that is pres- 

 ent in the ranks. On the 1st of January, 1889. the army 

 numbered 202,761 men, but of these there were 82,979 whose 

 chest girth was under 36 inches, — that is, froin 31 inches up 

 to 36 inches, — and only 16,324 who had a chest girth of 39 

 inches and upwards. Now on Brent's " medium " standard 

 there ought to have been none under 36 inches, and 67,236 

 ought to have had a girth of 36 inches and upwards. There 

 is, however, another mode of showing the presence of this 

 inferior physique, and that is by the great liability of the 

 army to disease under ordinary circumstances. During the 

 year 1888 there were 193,233 admitted into hospital, 1,845 

 died, 2,078 were sent home as invalids, 2,776 were discharged 

 as invalids, and 10,715.97 were constantly non-effective from 

 sickness. It is obvious that had the men been of good phys- 

 ique, and subjected to fairly good conditions, there would 

 not have been anything like this serious amount of sickness, 

 invaliding, and death. Why should not these men be placed 

 in a position to successfully compete with the unfavorable 

 conditions of their surroundings by the introduction of 

 physical development ? 



A reference to the tables in the supplement to the Regis- 

 trar-General's report, showing the comparative mortality of 

 those engaged in different trades and occupations, will show 

 the necessity for the diffusion of the knowledge of physical 

 development amongst those engaged therein. Life assurance 

 and sick benefit societies would not only considerably add to 

 their incomes and increase their stability by the recognition of 

 this relationship between conditions and type, but they would 

 also by that very act become powerful agents in the promo- 

 tion of national physique and public health. 



The introductioii of physical development as a necessary 

 part of the education of children is urgently and impera- 

 tively demanded. They have a splendid type of chest at 

 birth, the proportion of chest girth to height being a little 

 above Brent's "maximum" standard, but under the present 

 system of bringing up children, they are, from the moment 

 of birth, right through the whole course of modern educa- 

 tion, submitted to unfavorable conditions, so that for a height 

 of 51.84 inches there is a chest girth of 26.10 inches, instead 

 of one of 35.18 inches, or a loss in about ten years of nearly 

 nine inches. Here you have the best standard of chest girth. 

 Is it too much to ask that the conditioas of the child's sur- 

 roundings, as a whole, shall be so arranged that it may be 

 retained ? Look at the poor, puny chests we meet with 

 everywhere, and at the reports of the Registrar General, and 

 then we shall see the grave responsibility that lies upon us 

 for producing such a change and permitting it to continue. 



The cases just noted evidently require the introduction of 

 physical development, but where shall we find a man, a 

 woman, or a child in civilized countries upon whom its 

 adoption would not confer a great benefit ? We are here 

 face to face with a work so great that it will require all the 

 intelligence, the energy, the influence, and the means of a 

 well-organized body to accomplish it. The workers are here, 

 an important section of the public is ready to cooperate, and 

 the time for action has come. Why should we not have a 

 national association to meet this great national want ? 



CONTAMINATED WATER SUPPLY FOR LIVE 

 STOCK. ' 



There is no fact better known to the sanitarian than that 

 one of the chief sources of danger to life and health is the 

 contamination of drinkinar water. If a malignant form of 

 fever makes its appearance in a family, which cannot be ex- 

 plained by the history of actual exposure to contagion, the 

 water supply always comes in for an early and liberal share 

 of attention. The instances are sufficiently numerous in 

 which the investigator is enabled to trace the malady to this 

 source, to warrant every reasonable precaution in procuring 

 a pure water supply. Nor are these facts known to the sani- 

 tarian alone. The reading public have been sufficiently 

 enlightened on this subject to enable them to avoid much of 

 the danger from this source. 



While we are beginning to take a fairly lively interest in 

 our personal dangers and the methods calculated to avert 

 then:), we have yet hardly taken time to consider the eco- 

 nomic question of how far our live-stock industry may be 

 affected by the same class of causes. We drill down into 

 the solid rock to procure a water supply of unquestioned 

 purity for family use. We boil, or subject to other purify- 

 ing means, all suspected samples before they can be used. 

 This is well. But all this time our helpless dumb creatures 

 may be compelled to drink from a shallow slough, foul with 

 decomposing vegetation, or from a surface pond almost at 

 boiling temperature under a summer sun, where the minute 

 forms of animal and vegetable life generate in such profus- 

 ion as to render the whole a mass of animate slime. 



No one who has had a glimpse of the microscopic world 

 would expect a human being to take a draught of such a 

 beverage and live. But our animals are not only expected 

 to live, but to thrive under such conditions. That these ex- 

 pectations are frequently disappointing, I will cite an 

 instance or two in proof. During the latter part of the 

 summer of 1890, I had occasion to investigate a severe out- 

 break of disease on a farm in one of the counties of Iowa. 

 The animals, including horses, cattle, and pigs, were all 

 affected in the same way. The local symptoms were largely 

 confined to the throat. There was a swelling, partial paraly- 

 sis of the walls of the air passages, and painful and difficult 

 breathing. The animals attacked uniformly died after an 

 illness of about two days. The disease I could not recognize 

 as belonging to any of the well-deflned types with which I 

 was acquainted. Here were horses, cattle, and pigs sick and 

 dying with disease showing the same symptoms in all. 



There are few if any of tiie specific forms of disease that 

 spread, as epizootic, among the widely differing species of 

 domestic animals. I could not classify the disease, and at 

 once set about the task of discovering, if possible, some 

 common source of exposure. The pastures, buildings, and 

 water supply were each in turn subjected to careful sci-utiny. 



' M. Stalker, in the May Bulletin of the Iowa agricultural experiment station. 



