ENDEMIC DISEASE EFFECTING PROGRESS OF nations. 37 
"We now come face to face with thai profoundly interesting 
subject, the political, economical, and historical significance of this 
greal disease. We know thai malaria must have existed in Greece 
ever since the time of Hippocrates, about loo B. C. What effect 
has it had on the life of the country? In prehistoric times Greece 
was certainly peopled by successive waves of An an invaders from the 
north — probably a fair-haired people — who made it what it became, 
who conquered Persia and Egypt, and who created the sciences, 
arts, and philosophic- which we are only developing further to- 
day. Thai race reached its climax of development at the time of 
Pericles. Those greal and beautiful \ alleys were thickly peopled 
by a civilization which in some ways has not been excelled. 
Everywhere there wen 1 cities, temples, oracles, arts, philosophic-, 
and a population vigorous and well trained in arm-. Lake Kopais, 
now almost deserted, was surrounded by towns whose massive works 
remain to this day. Suddenly, however, a blight fell over all. Was 
it due to internecine conflict or to foreign conquest? Scarcely: for 
history show- that war hums and ravages, but does not annihilate. 
Thebes was thrice destroyed, hut thrice rebuilt. Or was it due to 
some cause, entering furtively and gradually sapping away the 
energies of the race by attacking the rural population, by slaying 
the new-born infant, by seizing the rising generation, and especially 
by killing out the fair-haired descendant of the original settlers, 
leaving behind chiefly the more immunised and darker children of 
their captives, Avon by the sword from Asia and Africa? 
" I can not imagine Lake Kopais, in its present highly malarious 
condition, to have been thickly peopled by a vigorous race; nor, on 
looking at those wonderful figured tombstones at Athens, can I 
imagine that the healthy and powerful people represented upon 
them could have ever passed through the anaemic and splenomegalous 
infancy (to coin a word) caused by widespread malaria. Well, I 
venture only to suggest the hypothesis, and must leave it to scholars 
for confirmation or rejection. Of one thing I am confident, that 
causes such as malaria, dysentery, and intestinal entozoa must have 
modified history to a much greater extent than Ave conceive. Our 
historians and economists do not seem even to have considered the 
matter. It is true that they speak of epidemic diseases, but the 
iiideniic diseases are really those of the greatest importance. ::: 
"The whole life of Greece must suffer from this weight, which 
crushes its rural energies. Where the children suffer so much, how 
can the country create that fresh blood which keeps a nation }^oung? 
But for a hamlet here and there, those famous valleys are deserted. 
I -aw from a spin- of Ilelikon the sun setting upon Parnassus, Apollo 
-inking, a- he was wont to do. towards his own fane at Delphi, and 
Hood of light over the great Kopaik Plain. But it seemed 
