Health, morals and longevity / by George Gresswell and Albert Gresswell.

  • Gresswell, George, 1858-1914.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Health, morals and longevity / by George Gresswell and Albert Gresswell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be without the extra efforts put forth. However bad things may be, they can very nearly always be much improved, and even if one be fairly healthy and active, there is generally at least some point in which one can be improved. It is most important to note this, because many people are apt to say : “ Oh ! I’m about as well and strong as I can expect to be, and it’s no good bothering to try to be better than God made me.” As a matter of fact, life should rather be looked upon as an incessant struggle, and as needing constant effort to become a better kind of life. As has been repeatedly pointed out, knowledge is most necessary, and all the more because there are so many who think they know, when they really do not know, what is right and what is wrong. People are very apt to go to extremes. For example, one notes the stuffing of consumptives beyond repletion, and the fasting of other patients, and with the opinion that both procedures are wrong. Again, some eat too much meat and some none at all. It is true that human beings vary, and that such variations in conduct may be in correspondence with different conditions of body necessitating different needs ; but still it is very probable that such extreme points of view and courses are often wrong. Again, in regard to cities, no doubt some are healthier and better managed from a hygienic point of view than smaller places ; but in cities, too, there are special dangers. One of these is the immense amount of vehicular traffic, whereby crossing the streets becomes perilous. It is true that at important places the police control the traffic in the interests of pedestrians, and such control is now more than ever needful, because the motors have very much augmented the dangers to which the latter are subjected. Indeed, one may say that some further action should be taken by those in authority to lessen the dangers of crossing the streets. Three suggestions may be made :— 1. At every greatly thronged place there should be regular intervals of time when all vehicular traffic should be stopped so as to allow pedestrians five minutes for crossing the road. We might suggest a period of five minutes at the close of each quarter of an hour. Some such course in some places to some extent is already taken, but it should be more stringently carried out, and more frequently. 2. Elevated crossings so high as to be above all vehicles should be erected at all such places as Piccadilly Circus, Regent Circus, Potsdamer Platz (in Berlin). 3. Where they would be more convenient, tunnels for foot-passengers, connecting important centres, should be constructed. On the whole it is wonderful that some such devices have not been long since more thoroughly carried out; but now that the additional peril of motor vehicles has been added to the previous dangers of the streets, and it is known that street accidents are far more numerous than they formerly were, something should really be done to make it easier and safer for pedestrians to cross the roadways of cities and large towns.