10 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1018 



only in England, but in all parts of Europe. 

 Writers of every nation describe the same dis- 

 soluteness of manners consequent upon the epi- 

 demic. 



A Venetian historian notes the general 

 dissoluteness which followed the disease 

 and its effects in lowering the standard of 

 probity and morals. Covino of Montpellier 

 bears testimony to the baneful effects of the 

 scourge on the morals of those who escaped, 

 and concludes that such visitations exercise 

 the most harmful influence on the general 

 virtue of the world. William of Nangis, 

 in his history of the plagnae in France in 

 1348, concludes with the following : 



But alas! the world by this renovation is not 

 changed for the better. For people vrere after- 

 wards more avaricious and grasping, even when 

 they possessed more of this world's goods than 

 before. They were more covetous, vexing them- 

 selves by contradictions, quarrels, strifes and law- 

 suits. 



Many similar references could be given, 

 but these suffice to show that disease breeds 

 ignorance, immorality and strife. Our 

 inquiries into the influence of disease on 

 civilization, however, have brought out the 

 fact that people living in comparative 

 health have within a few generations made 

 beginnings, at least, some, highly creditable, 

 in government, literature and science. The 

 Hellenic tribes of Greece built up their 

 wondrous civilization within a few cen- 

 turies. It is true that Eome was not built 

 in a day, but the seven hills were covered 

 with houses and temples, the great aque- 

 ducts brought abundant supplies of pure 

 water from the mountains and the wonder- 

 ful sewei-s remain as evidence of sanitary 

 skill, and all this was accomplished in a 

 relatively short period measured in the 

 history of the race. The world moved for- 

 ward at a rapid pace with the dawn of sci- 

 ence in the last century. It is not extrava- 

 gant to prophesy that with ten centuries of 

 freedom from disease, both inherited and 



acquired, the world would be regenerated 

 and the superman be born. 



It is not necessary to turn to history for 

 examples of the degrading effects of dis- 

 ease on man. We see it to-day in the 

 physical inferiority, intellectual weakness 

 and moral irresponsibility of those peoples 

 who are still under the domination of 

 malaria and kindred diseases. My illus- 

 trious predecessor in this office, Dr. Gorgas, 

 has demonstrated what scientific medicine 

 may accomplish in these pestilential regions, 

 and it is within reason to look forward to 

 the time when the tropics may supply 

 choice locations for civilized man. In like 

 manner the valleys of the Tigris and Eu- 

 phrates are being reclaimed and Babylon 

 and Nineveh may again become seats of 

 learning and culture. The modern sani- 

 tarian is quite competent to rebuild the 

 home in which the cradle of civilization 

 was rocked. 



After the last epidemic of the plague in 

 London in 1665 the death-rate, so far as it 

 can be ascertained, fell to between 70 and 

 80 per 1,000. During the next century it 

 fell as low as 50, but fluctuated greatly with 

 recurring epidemics of typhus and small- 

 pox. In the nineteenth, it gradually and 

 quite constantly decreased and is now about 

 14. In 1879-80, the first year in which 

 the mortality statistics of the United States 

 possess sufficient accuracy to be of any 

 value, the death-rate in the registered area 

 was 19.8 ; in 1912 it was 13.9 — a, decrease of 

 30 per cent. During the same time the 

 mortality from typhoid fever has decreased 

 50 per cent. ; that from scarlet fever 89 per 

 cent. ; that from diphtheria 84 per cent. ; 

 that from tuberculosis 54 per cent. Hoff- 

 man states that had the death-rate for 

 tuberculosis in 1901 continued there would 

 have been 200,000 more deaths from this 

 cause from that date to 1911 than actually 

 did occur, or the actual saving of lives from 



