Civics and HealthAllen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Science
Civics and Health
Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Hygiene; Public health
Two things will disclose the strength or weakness of a bank and the
soundness or unsoundness of a nation's banking policy, namely, a
financial crisis or an expert audit. A searching audit that analyzes
each debit and each credit frequently shows that a bank is solvent only
because it is not asked to pay its debts. It continues to do business
so long as no obvious weaknesses appear, analogous to measles,
adenoids, or paralysis. A frequent disorder of banking results from
doing too big a business on too little capital, in making too many
loans for the amount of cash held ready to pay depositors upon demand.
This disorder always comes to light in a crisis--too late. It can be
discovered if looked for in advance of a crisis. Many individuals and
communities are likewise physically solvent only because their physical
resources are not put to the test. Weaknesses that lie near the surface
can be discovered before a crisis by physical examination for
individuals and sanitary supervision for communities. Whether
individuals or communities are trying to do too much business for their
health capital, whether the health reserves will pay debts that arise
in a crisis, whether we are ill or well prepared to stand a run on our
vitality, can be learned only by carefully analyzing our health
reserves. Health debits are compared with health credits for
individuals by vitality tests, for communities by vital statistics.
Of the many vitality tests none is practicable for use in the ordinary
class room. Scientific training is just as necessary for such tests as
for discovering the quality of the blood, the presence or absence of
tubercle bacilli in the sputum, diphtheria germs in throat mucus, or
typhoid germs in milk. But scientific truth, the results of scientific
tests, can be made of everyday use in all class rooms. State and
national headquarters for educators, and all large cities, can afford
to engage scientists to apply vitality tests to school children for the
sake of discovering, in advance of physical breakdown and before
outward symptoms are obvious, what curriculum, what exercise, what
study, recreation, and play periods are best suited to child
development. It will cost infinitely less to proceed this way than to
neglect children or to fit school methods to the loudest, most
persistent theory.
The ergograph is an interesting strength tester. It takes a picture (1)
of the energy exerted, and (2) of the regularity or fitfulness of the
manner in which energy is exerted. Perhaps the time will come when
science and commerce will supply every tintype photographer with an
ergograph and the knowledge to use it. Then we shall hear at summer
resorts and fairs, "Your ergograph on a postal card, three for a
quarter." We can step inside, harness our middle finger to the
ergograph, lift it up and down forty-five times in ninety seconds, and
lo! a photograph of our vitality! If we have strong muscles or good
control, the picture will be like this:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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