Decay of National Physique. 49 



of the men who have traversed the wilds of Africa, and of those 

 who have carried the British flag to the verge of either pole, show 

 that we may safely challenge comparison in courage and 

 endurance with those of any preceding generation, and the 

 soldiers who pierced the burning wastes of the Soudan would 

 not seem to be degenerate descendants of the heroes of Blen- 

 heim and Waterloo. 



The average duration of human life, according to Sir Spencer 

 Wells, half a century ago was thirty years ; it is now forty- 

 nine. There is also a diminution in the number of those who 

 were permanently sick. These facts are inconsistent with 

 physical deterioration. He found encouragement and a hope- 

 ful outlook regarding the physical welfare of the people from 

 the unquestionable moral advance which this century has 

 witnessed, as shown by recent figures published by Sir Edmund 

 Ducane. There can, he thought, be little doubt that the 

 arduous march of humanity is not only onward but upward. 

 The ascent is doubtless slow and toilsome, but it is 

 continuous. Each age reads more or less intelligibly the 

 experience of the preceding ages, and profits more or less 

 thoroughly from the warning which this experience affords. 

 Generations of men, not less than individuals, rise on stepping- 

 stones of their dead selves to higher things. It would be 

 strange to find an insidious physical decay associated with the 

 immense diffusion of knowledge, the unprecedented develop- 

 ment of religious and philanthropic effort, the victorious 

 advance of science, and the distribution among all classes of so 

 many of the comforts and luxuries of life such as we find 

 to day. Yet such a decay, of which at present he could discern 

 no evident signs, might too easily set in were we to forget 

 that physical soundness was at the foundation of national as of 

 individual prosperity, or were we ever to ignore the weighty 

 words of Rawlinson, " The strength and glory of a nation are 

 not in standing armies and ironclad fleets, but in the health, 

 well-being, and contentment of the people." 



The paper was then criticised. 



Professor T. Sinclair, M.D., said he admired very much the 



