354 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 455. 



nation requirements of the upper grades 

 and by the entrance requirements of 

 higher educational institutions. With 

 physiology and hygiene the case is differ- 

 ent. Proficiency in these is rarely made 

 a condition of promotion. They are sel- 

 dom included in the list of requirements 

 for admission to colleges or technical 

 schools, and never in those for medical 

 schools. They are not often much consid- 

 ered in educational congresses. And yet 

 it is doubtful whether any subject in the 

 whole curriculum of the public schools is 

 of greater intrinsic importance as a prep- 

 aration for life, or is capable of affecting 

 more profoundly the whole mental atti- 

 tude of men and women toward an endur- 

 ing and well-organized civilization. 



The real importance of physiology and 

 hygiene is unquestionably far greater to- 

 day than it was twenty-five years ago. At 

 that time physiology was a new science. It 

 was still commonly taught in medical 

 schools as an adjunct to anatomy, and the 

 double-headed professorship of anatomy 

 and physiology had not then become ex- 

 tinct. As for hygiene, this was largely a 

 body of precepts based upon a priori rea- 

 soning, or else of deductions derived 

 jointly from anatomical knowledge, com- 

 mon experience and common sense. Disease 

 was only a little more baffling that health, 

 and the promotion of one poorly understood 

 condition by the prevention of one still 

 less comprehended was not only a most un- 

 satisfactory, but a most unscientific under- 

 taking. Nevertheless, in spite of this diffi- 

 culty and uncertainty, physiology and 

 hygiene, such as they were, have stead- 

 fastly held their place in the ciirriculum of 

 the public schools, no doubt because of an 

 unconquerable belief that they should 

 somehow furnish to the developing mind 

 and the forming character some real and 

 lasting help in the preparation for life. 



And at last this belief seems likely to 

 bear fruit and to justify its long and pa- 

 tient expectation. For to-day physiology 

 has won an established and recognized po- 

 sition as an independent science. It has 

 become entirely separated from anatomy. 

 It has its own professors in our medical 

 schools and imiversities. We have a 

 strong and active American Physiological 

 Society, composed of expert investigators 

 and teachers, and a flourishing American 

 Journal of Physiology, which, publishes reg- 

 ularly budgets of important discoveries. 



In hygiene the progress has been even 

 more remarkable. Twenty years ago the 

 infectious diseases were as mysterioiis as 

 ever, but to-day we understand the essen- 

 tials of their operation and also to a great 

 extent the mechanism of their dissemina- 

 tion and, therefore, in many cases the ways 

 of their prevention. The clouds of mystery 

 which until lately hung about them have 

 been largely cleared away, and a new hy- 

 giene, based partly upon experimental phys- 

 iology and partly upon experimental medi- 

 cine, has come into being. Meantime an en- 

 lightened sanitary engineering is building 

 improved sewers and water-works and 

 dealing with the purification of sewage 

 and M'ater, with the construction of sani- 

 tary jjavements, with the dust nuisance 

 and Avith efficient scavenging and garbage 

 destruction. Boards of health are equip- 

 ped with laboratories for sanitary testing 

 and research. They are supervising the 

 medical inspection of schools. They are 

 isolating cases of infectious disease and 

 securing the disinfection of clothing and 

 of houses. They are enforcing vaccination. 

 They are vacating unwholesome dwellings. 

 Educators themselves are engaged in 

 hygienic endeavors. They are providing 

 for playgrounds. They are beginning to 

 attend as never before to the ventilation 

 of school buildings. They are interested 

 in the lighting of school-rooms, in the seat- 



