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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 787 



his fellows in the profession, but especially 

 for those outside of it. Ignorance concern- 

 ing these matters is appalling not only 

 among the uneducated but among the edu- 

 cated as well. There are many teachers in 

 our public schools, not only in the primary 

 and secondary schools, but in our colleges 

 and even in our universities as well, who 

 are in absolute ignorance of the most ele- 

 mentary principles of hygiene. There are 

 master architects planning our buildings, 

 both public and private, who have no 

 knowledge of ventilation. They may pro- 

 duce imposing elevations and design beau- 

 tiful cornices and pleasing facades, but 

 they are ignorant of the proper distribu- 

 tion of air and light. I predict that the 

 time does not lie many generations in the 

 future when many of the national, state 

 and municipal buildings upon which the 

 present looks with pride will be regarded 

 as relics of a barbaric, at least a semi-bar- 

 baric, past. There are members on our 

 public water commissions who could not 

 distinguish between a tjrphoid bacillus and 

 a yeast plant. As a rule, the men who 

 enact our laws, both national and state, 

 know nothing of that greatest asset that a 

 people may have, which is health. Some- 

 times this amounts to a national calamity. 

 I need only refer to the fact that when we 

 last assembled a great army, within less 

 than three months, and without seeing the 

 enemy, nearly one fifth of those who en- 

 listed were incapacitated by disease. This 

 was due essentially to two things. First, 

 Congress in its stupidity and ignorance had 

 failed to make proper provision for the 

 medical service. There was not a micro- 

 scope in a camp in the United States army 

 in 1898, so far as I know, until the neces- 

 sity for its use was made evident by thou- 

 sands of cases of typhoid fever, at first 

 wrongly diagnosed as malaria— a mistake 

 that could not have been made had the 



medical service been equipped as the then 

 surgeon general wished it to be. But Con- 

 gress would not listen to the man who was 

 regarded by many of its members as only 

 a scientific crank. In the second place, the 

 line officer of that time, and no one appre- 

 ciates his high average character more than 

 I do, and I saw miieh of him, was too often 

 deaf to his medical assistant and comrade. 

 Shortly after the Japanese-Eussian war I 

 had occasion to compliment a high medical 

 officer of the former nation on the low 

 Japanese death rate from disease, when 

 he replied: "We know nothing more 

 about the hygiene of armies than you 

 do. In fact, what we do know we learned 

 from America and Europe, but our line 

 officers accepted our advice so far as was 

 possible. ' ' 



Health is, as I have stated, a nation's 

 best asset, and yet the sums devoted to 

 maintaining the health of our people by 

 the nation and by the several states are 

 paltry in the extreme. 



We need not worry about a low birth 

 rate, but we should regard a high death 

 rate as a national disgrace and a sign of 

 national decay. As the race grows wiser 

 and stronger in body and intellect these 

 rates quite naturally approach the same 

 level. This was made plain by Herbert 

 Spencer more than fifty years ago. No 

 nation that neglects the health of its people 

 can hope to endure, and that government 

 that secures for its citizens the longest 

 average life in health is the best, whatever 

 its tariff laws may be. These facts are 

 being understood more or less thoroughly 

 by some of the most advanced nations, and 

 in doing this work the medical profession 

 must lead the way. The medical educators 

 of this country realize this much more fully 

 than any one else can, and laying aside per- 

 sonal ambitions and especially pecuniary 

 considerations, they are striving to prepare 



