Never has society been so clear as to its several special ends, never has so little effort been due to chance or compulsion.
Ralph Barton Perry, The Moral Economy.
Not through chance, but through increase of scientific knowledge; not through compulsion, but through democratic idealism consciously working through common interests, will be brought about the creation of right conditions, the control of environment.
The betterment of living conditions, through conscious endeavor, for the purpose of securing efficient human beings, is what the author means by Euthenics.[1]
“Human vitality depends upon two primary conditions—heredity and hygiene—or conditions preceding birth and conditions during life.”[2]
Eugenics deals with race improvement through heredity.
Euthenics deals with race improvement through environment.
Eugenics is hygiene for the future generations.
Euthenics is hygiene for the present generation.
Eugenics must await careful investigation.
Euthenics has immediate opportunity.
Euthenics precedes eugenics, developing better men now, and thus inevitably creating a better race of men in the future. Euthenics is the term proposed for the preliminary science on which Eugenics must be based.
This new science seeks to emphasize the immediate duty of man to better his conditions by availing himself of knowledge already at hand. As far as in him lies he must make application of this knowledge to secure his greatest efficiency under conditions which he can create or under such existing conditions as he may not be able wholly to control, but such as he may modify. The knowledge of the causes of disease tends only to depress the average citizen rather than to arouse him to combat it. Hope of success will urge him forward, and it is the duty of lovers of mankind to show all possible ways of attaining the goal. The tendency to hopelessness retards reformation and regeneration, and the lack of belief in success holds back the wheels of progress.
Euthenics is to be developed:
Students of sanitary science discover for us the laws which make for health and the prevention of disease. The laboratory has been studying conditions and causes, and now can show the way to many remedies.
A knowledge of these laws, of the means of conserving man’s resources and vitality, which will result in the wealth of human energy, is more and more brought within the reach of all by various educational agencies.
The individual must estimate properly the value of this knowledge in its application to daily life, in order to secure efficiency and the greatest happiness for himself and for the community.
Right living conditions comprise pure food and a safe water supply, a clean and disease-free atmosphere in which to live and work, proper shelter, and the adjustment of work, rest, and amusement. The attainment of these conditions calls for hearty coöperation between individual and community—effort on the part of the individual because the individual makes personality a power; effort on the part of the community because the strength of combined endeavor is required to meet all great problems.
[1] Eutheneo, Εὐθηνέω (eu, well; the, root of tithemi, to cause). To be in a flourishing state, to abound in, to prosper.—Demosthenes. To be strong or vigorous.—Herodotus. To be vigorous in body.—Aristotle.
Euthenia, Εὐθηνία. Good state of the body: prosperity, good fortune, abundance.—Herodotus.
[2] Report on National Vitality, p. 49.
The opportunity for betterment is real and practical, not merely academic.
Men ignore Nature’s laws in their personal lives. They crave a larger measure of goodness and happiness, and yet in their choice of dwelling places, in their building of houses to live in, in their selection of food and drink, in their clothing of their bodies, in their choice of occupations and amusements, in their methods and habits of work, they disregard natural laws and impose upon themselves conditions that make their ideals of goodness and happiness impossible of attainment.
Prof. George E. Dawson, The Control of Life through Environment.
And is it, I ask, an unworthy ambition for man to set before himself to understand those eternal laws upon which his happiness, his prosperity, his very life depend? Is he to be blamed and anathematized for endeavoring to fulfill the divine injunction: “Fear God and keep His commandments, for that is the whole duty of man”? Before he can keep them, surely he must first ascertain what they are.
Adam Sedgwick. Address, Imperial College of Science and Technology,
December 16, 1909. Nature, December 23, 1909, p. 228.
In my judgment, the situation is hopeful. To realize that our problems are chiefly those of environment which we in increasing measure control, to realize that, no matter how bad the environment of this generation, the next is not injured provided that it be given favorable conditions, is surely to have an optimistic view.
Carl Kelsey, Influence of Heredity and Environment upon Race Improvement.
Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, July, 1909.
It is within the power of every living man to rid himself of every parasitic disease. Pasteur.
Such facts as the following, showing the increase in health, or rather the decrease in disease, go to prove what may be done.
Since 1882, tuberculosis has decreased forty-nine per cent; typhoid, thirty-nine per cent. Statistics in regard to heart disease and other troubles under personal control, however, show increase—kidney disease, 131 per cent; heart disease, fifty-seven per cent; apoplexy, eighty-four per cent. This means that infectious and contagious diseases, of which the State has taken cognizance and to the suppression of which it has applied known laws of science, have been brought under control, and their existence today is due only to the carelessness or the ignorance of individuals.
On the other hand, such results of improper personal living as do not come under legal control—diseases of the heart, kidneys, and general degeneration, matters of personal hygiene—have so enormously increased as in themselves to show the attitude of mind of the great mass of the people, “Let us eat and drink and be merry, what if we do die tomorrow!”
Probably not more than twenty-five per cent in any community are doing a full day’s work such as they would be capable of doing if they were in perfect health. This adds to the length of the school course, to the cost of production in all directions, to increased taxation, and decreases interest in daily life.
The trouble is that the public does not believe in this waste which comes from being “just poorly” or “just so as to be about.” It has no conception of the difference between working with a clear brain and a steady hand, and working with a dull and nerveless tool. It must be convinced of this in some way. General warnings have been ineffective, and now the appeal is being made to the American people on the basis of money loss. Thus it has been carefully estimated that the average economic value of an inhabitant of the United States is $2,900. The vital statistics of the United States for population give 85,500,000. Eighty-five million five hundred thousand multiplied by $2,900 equals $250,000,000,000 (minimum estimate), and this exceeds the value of all other wealth. The actual economic saving possible annually in this country by preventing needless deaths, needless illness, and needless fatigue is certainly far greater than $1,500,000,000, and may be three or four times as great.
Dr. George M. Gould estimated that sickness and death in the United States cost $3,000,000,000 annually, of which at least one-third is regarded as preventable.
From all sides comes testimony to the decrease in personal efficiency of workers of all degrees. Medical science has prolonged life, hospitals and visiting nurses have made sickness less distressful, but have also in many cases prolonged the time and increased the cost. Sanitary science aims to prevent the beginnings of sickness, and so to eliminate much of the expense.
The discovery that the mosquito is the carrying agent for the yellow fever germ has saved more lives annually than were lost in the Cuban War. In the yellow fever epidemic of 1872, the loss to the country was not less than $100,000,000 in gold.
“With our present population there are always about 3,000,000 persons in the United States on the sick list.... By means of Farr’s table, we may calculate that very close to a third, or 1,000,000 persons, are in the working period of life. Assuming that average earnings in the working period are $700, and that only three-fourths of the 1,000,000 potential workers would be occupied, we find over $500,000,000 as the minimum loss of earnings.
“The cost of medical attendance, medicine and nursing, etc., is conjectured by Dr. Biggs in New York to be from $1.50 each per day for the consumptive poor to a greater amount for other diseases and classes. Applying this to the 3,000,000 years of illness annually experienced, we have $1,500,000,000 as the minimum annual cost of this kind.
“The statistics of the Commissioner of Labor show that the expenditure for illness and death amounts to twenty-seven dollars per family per annum. This is for workingmen’s families only. But even this figure, if applied to the 17,000,000 families of the United States, would make the total bill caring for illness and death $460,000,000. The true cost may well be more than twice this sum. Certainly the estimate is more than safe, and is only one-third of the sum obtained by using Dr. Biggs’s estimate. The sum of the costs of illness, including loss of wages and cost of care, is thus $460,000,000 plus $500,000,000 equals $960,000,000.... At least three-quarters of the costs are preventable.”[3]
The cost of certain preventable diseases a year is estimated by various authorities as:
| Tuberculosis | $1,000,000,000 |
| Typhoid | 250,000,000 |
| Malaria | 100,000,000 |
| Other insect diseases | 100,000,000 |
A hopeful sign of awakening is the endeavor by life insurance companies to bring home to the people the possibilities of race betterment. One company sends out among its policy holders trained nurses, who give plain talks on health subjects and offer practical suggestions as to hygienic living. This, to be sure, is on the economic basis of money saving, but if that is the only thing that will appeal to the people is it not wise to seize upon it as a lever to lift the standard of well-being?
The possibility of saving the enormous sums that are lost by reason of premature deaths was an alluring subject to the insurance men. It gave to the world what, up to that time, it had lacked—a body of powerful men who recognized that they had a financial interest in preventing the needless death of men and women.
A table has been prepared showing that if insurance companies were to expend $200,000 a year for the purely commercial object of reducing their death losses, and should thereby decrease them only twelve one-hundredths of one per cent, they would save enough to cover the expense.
“If such a plan as this were placed on a purely scientific basis and carried out by good business methods, and all the companies pulled together for the common good, I should expect a decrease in death claims of more than one per cent; and a decrease in the death claims of one per cent would mean that the companies would save more than eight times as much as they expended, or would make a net saving of more than seven times the expense, which would be about a million and a half dollars a year.”[4]
“While it would be impossible to state in general terms how rich a return lies ready for public or private investments in good health, these examples (life insurance) show that the rate of this return is quite beyond the dreams of avarice. Were it possible for the public to realize this fact, motives both of economy and of humanity would dictate immediate and generous expenditure of public moneys for improving the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, as well as for eliminating the dangers of life and limb which now surround us.”[5]
Undoubtedly a moral force is to be strengthened by spreading the biological lesson that man cannot live to himself alone, but that his acts or failure to act affect a large number of his fellowmen. Also, a stimulus to personal ambition is to be supplied in the suggestion of better health and consequently more money to spend as a result.
Civic pride and private gain will be brought into the endeavor to show man that to understand himself, to exercise the same control over his activities that he uses over his machines, is to double his capacity, not only for work, but for pleasure. This control is now possible through the application of recently confirmed scientific knowledge as to man’s environment.
It is the aim of this book to arouse the thinking portion of the community to the opportunity of the present moment for inculcating such standards of living as shall tend to the increase of health and happiness.
To the women of America has come an opportunity to put their education, their power of detailed work, and any initiative they may possess at the service of the State.
Faith, Hope, and Courage may be taken as the three potent watchwords of the New Crusade. There is a real contagion of ideas as well as of disease germs.
[3] Report on National Vitality, p. 119.
[4] Hiram J. Messenger, Travelers Insurance Co., Hartford, Conn.
[5] Report on National Vitality, p. 123.
Individual effort is needed to improve individual conditions. Home and habits of living. Good habits pay in economy of time and force.
The hope is springing up in some minds that the entire problem of human regeneration will be much simplified when men shall have learned more fully the nature of their own lives, the nature of the physical world that environs them, and the interaction between this physical world and the spirit of man which is set to subdue it.
Prof. George E. Dawson, The Control of Life through Environment.
We create the evil as well as the good. Nature is impersonal. To an increasing degree man determines.
Carl Kelsey.
The only certain remedy for any disease is man’s own vital power.
Today only an exceptional man, almost a genius, learns to modify his habits and his life to his environment and to triumph over his surroundings, his appetites, and the absurd dictates of fashion.
Richard Cole Newton, M.D., How Shall the Destructive
Tendencies of Modern Life Be Met and Overcome?
We have certain inherent capacities as to bodily strength, length of life, etc., but it lies largely with ourselves to adopt a mode of life which may make an actual difference in height, weight, and physical strength and intellectual capacity.
E.H. Richards, Sanitation in Daily Life.
There are two recognized ways of improving the quality of human beings: one by giving them a better heredity—starting them in life with a stronger heart, better digestion, steadier nerves; the other by so combining the factors of daily life that even a weak heart may grow strong, a poor digestion may become good, and frayed nerves gain steadiness.
E.H. Richards, The Art of Right Living.
The relation of environment to man’s efficiency is a vital consideration: how far it is responsible for his character, his views, and his health; what special elements in the environment are most potent and what are the most readily controlled, provided sufficient knowledge can be gained of the forces and conditions to be used.
To this end home life—in its relations to the child, the adult, and the community—is considered in connection with the effect on the home of the influences outside it, and the reaction of each on the other. These relations and influences are partly physical and material, partly ethical and psychical.
The right of the child is protection, and it is the responsibility of the adult—parent, teacher, or state officer—to secure this protection.