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CORRESPONDENCE. 
* * The Editor does not hold himself responsible for statements of fads or 
* opinions expressed in Correspondence, or in Articles bearing the signature 
of their respective authors. 
THE DILEMMA OF HUMAN LIFE. 
To the Editor of The Journal of Science . 
S IR) I take the liberty of calling your attention to the subjoined 
remarkable passage from the il Medical Press and Circular . ~ 
“ Life and Death . — This is the substance of a review of a 
book iust published on the ‘ Destruftion of Life by Snake-bites, 
Hydrophobia, &c., in Western India*:— ‘To know that twenty 
thousand people annually lose their lives in India from snake- 
bites ought to be enough to arouse the indignant remonstrances 
of philanthropic folk, especially when we reflet that a twentieth 
part of that number slain in fair fight would be held sufficient 
cause for which to hurl an able and useful Government from 
power. But in all seriousness, if the death-rate in India is tobe 
persistently reduced by the prevention of famines, the destruction 
'of wild beasts, the killing of snakes, the prevention of internal 
wars and feuds, the punishment for murder, improved sanitation, 
vaccination, better medical treatment, public dispensaries, puri- 
fied water, drainage and removal of malaria, and all the other 
resources of advanced civilisation, some frightful calamity will 
be brought upon the country by the awful increase in the popu- 
lation without any possible means of increasing the food supply. 
If these energetic interferences with Nature’s laws are to be ex- 
tended, they must be accompanied by equally determined efforts 
to feed the additional millions preserved thereby ; otherwise we 
shall be merely creating mischief with one hand, while combating 
it with the other. The prevention of the twenty thousand annual 
deaths from snake-bites would increase the population of India 
by about ten millions every thirty or forty years ; and it would be 
interesting to get the ex-Commissioner’s opinion as to the means 
of feeding this vast increase. And we say this while deeply 
regretting the loss of life now going on, and lecommending his 
