56 



ird January^ 1894. 



Professor Fitzgerald, B.A., M.I.C.E., President, in the Chair. 



Mr. Conway Scott, C.E., Executive Sanitary Officer for the 



City, delivered a Lecture on 



"NATIONAL HEALTH." 



Mr. Scott prefaced his lecture by stating that he had chosen 

 for the title of his address " National Health" in preference to 

 the common expression " Public Health," which in these days 

 of statistics had come to have a very peculiar meaning, differing 

 very much from what the words actually expressed, and he used 

 the term health in its widest significance, including not only 

 physical, but intellectual and spiritual health. By national 

 health he simply meant the state of health of the people who 

 constituted a nation, and this state of health could only be 

 measured by the percentage of healthy human beings in the 

 nation. For example, if a nation had 90 per cent, of its people 

 healthy, strong, and energetic, and 10 per cent, diseased, weak, 

 and spiritless, such a nation could confidently be said to have 

 an exceptionally high standard of national health. If a nation 

 had 75 per cent, of its people thoroughly healthy, physically, 

 intellectually, and spiritually, and 25 per cent, diseased, such a 

 nation had also a high standard of national health. If a nation 

 had 50 per cent, of its people healthy in body, mind, and spirit, 

 and 50 per cent, diseased weaklings, such a nation, no matter 

 how high its civilization, how great its national prosperity, or 

 how pure its religion, could not be said to have a satisfactory 

 state of national health. If a nation contained only 25 per cent. 

 of healthy people such a nation, although enjoying the full 

 fruits of civilization and full of glorious institutions for the 



