THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — PHYSICAL 303 



and other surroundings, but not to measles. That they 

 suffered from sequelae only proves how much the disease 

 injured them. It certainly appears true that measles is 

 a disease so mild that, in the great majority of instances, 

 infected individuals, even of races that have had no 

 experience of it, may be saved by proper treatment; 

 but it is certainly true also, that individuals of such 

 races are vastly less resistant to it than those of races 

 which have long been afflicted by it — that they take 

 the disease in its severer forms, and under unfavourable 

 conditions succumb more easily. 



" We all know the story of the measles in Fiji, how 

 in 1876 it swept away forty thousand out of the popu- 

 lation of one hundred and fifty thousand. Measles, when 

 it attacks the Polynesians, is no longer the infantile 

 malady we know of. It becomes a devastating plague. 

 The Tongans, with the experience of Fiji in their 

 memories, took, it is true, some precautions against the 

 after-effects of the disease ; but nevertheless one- 

 twentieth of the population was carried off, and the 

 remainder was so demoralized that it was threatened 

 with famine." — Thomson, The DiversioTis of a Prime 

 Minister. 



Dysentery, Diarrhoea, Enteric Fever, &c. — Malaria, 

 tuberculosis, and measles afford ample proof that man's 

 present evolution is mainly against disease, and more- 

 over, that in different countries the direction of the 

 evolution is different because different diseases differ- 

 ently determine it. Similar evidence is afforded by a 

 study of many other diseases, for these, like malaria, 

 tuberculosis, and measles, are invariably more fatal to 

 strangers from beyond their areas of distribution than 

 to races that have long dwelt within the districts they 

 infest ; but because few diseases are so prevalent within 



