IS NATURE CRUEL? 413 



against all kinds of disease; and that to put any product of 

 disease whatever into the blood of a really healthy person is to 

 create a danger far greater than the disease itself. 



On the general principles of the present argunienr there 

 can be nothing in nature which is not useful, and, in a broad 

 sense, essential to the whole scheme of the life-wtudd. (Jn this 

 principle the purpose and use of all parasitic diseases, including 

 those caused by pathogenic germs, i?^ to seize upon the less 

 adapted and less healthy individuals — those which are slowly 

 dying and no longer of value in the preservation of the species, 

 and therefore to a certain extent injurious to the race by recpiir- 

 ing food and occupying space needed by the more fit. Tlicir 

 life is thus shortened, and a lingering and unenjoyable exist- 

 ence more speedily terminated. One recent writer seems to hold 

 this view, as shown by the following passage: 



" Before it was perceived that disease is an undisputable battle- 

 field of the true Darwinian struggle for existence, the tremendous 

 part which it takes in ridding the earth of weaklings and causing 

 the survival of health, was all credited to the environment and its 

 dead physical forces." ^ 



Bnt in this interesting article the writer elsewhere uses lan- 

 guage implying that even the healthy require rendering '' im- 

 mune " against all zymotic diseases. It is tliat idea which I 

 protest against as a libel on nature and on the Ruler of the 

 Universe; and in its practice as constituting a crime of equal 

 gravity Avith vivisection itself. 



It will be said that quite healthy persons die (^f thesi^ dis- 

 eases, but that cannot be proved; and the absolutely universal 

 fact that it is among those living under unhealthy conditions 

 in our towns, and cities, and villages, that suft'er most from these 

 diseases is strongly against the truth of the statement. No 

 doubt savage races often suffer drearlfully from these diseases; 

 but savages are no more universally healthy than the more civil- 



1 Parasitism and Natural Sclrotioii. l)y R. O. Eccles, M.D., Brooklyn, N. 

 Y., U. S. A. 



