The aristocracy of health : a study of physical culture, our favorite poisons, and a national and international league for the advancement of physical culture / by Mary Foote Henderson.

  • Henderson, Mary F. (Mary Foote), 1842-1931.
Date:
1904-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The aristocracy of health : a study of physical culture, our favorite poisons, and a national and international league for the advancement of physical culture / by Mary Foote Henderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    izecl blood, all those, indeed, who feel that they need some poison stimulant, however small, are the weeds that choke national life. The perversion of the race is oTeatest from this source. However, the more one studies these questions the less pessimistic one be- comes concerning human life. In fact, one is forced to believe that the great Creator intended this world for an earthly paradise, and that health, beauty, hap- piness, and success are the natural birthright of man. In this new light the problem of human misfortune is an easy one, and we learn that the chief duty of mankind is physical culture; the chief duty of the educator, the preacher, the parent, and the legislator is to teach and circumvent what most contributes to the defeneration of mankind. Of course the field for the study of degeneracy is large. It includes not only personal habits, diet, exercise, mode of dress, air, light, climate, and all questions of sanitation which are under the control of every intelligent being, but the study of physiol- ogy and inheritance. It includes, in fact, the con- sideration of all the causes and agencies which serve to change the physical organization for better or for worse. Lankester says : Degeneracy is a. gradual change of structures by which the organism becomes adapted to less varied and less complex conditions of hfe, as progression is a gradual change of structure in which the organism be- comes adapted to the more and more varied and complex conditions of life. In other words, life is poorer and poorer or richer and richer as forces exist which are pre- servative or destructive of the race.