In fact, all evidence points to _active, rapid improvement, bodily and mental, in the worst districts_, so soon as they are exposed to better circumstances, even the weaker children recovering at a later age from the evil effects of infant life. (P. 20.) “To discuss more closely the question of heredity may I in the first instance recall a medical factor of the greatest importance: the small percentage of unhealthy births among the poor—even down to the very poorest. The number of children born healthy is even in the worst districts very great. The exact number has never been the subject of investigation, owing largely to the certainty which exists on the point in the minds of medical men—but it would seem to be not less than 90 per cent. “I have sought confirmation of my view with medical colleagues in public work, _e.g._ public health, poor law, factory acts, education, and in private practice in poor areas, and I have also consulted large maternity charities and have always been strengthened in this view. _In no single case has it ever been asserted that ill-nourished or unhealthy babies are more frequent at the time of birth among the poor than among the rich, or that hereditary diseases affect the new-born of the rich and the poor unequally._ The poorest and most ill-nurtured women bring forth as hale and strong-looking babies as those in the very best conditions. In fact, it almost appears as though the unborn child fights strenuously for its own health at the expense of the mother, and arrives in the world with a full chance of living a normal physical existence.... The interpretation would seem to be that Nature gives every generation a fresh start.” [Q. 558. There is a fresh chance of getting rid of rickets with every generation?] “Yes; rickets, malnutrition, low height, poor weight, anæmia, and all the other circumstances of neglected existence. It is from the moment of birth that the sad history begins,—the large infant mortality, the systematic neglect, the impoverishment of the constitution,—the resulting puny material which is handed over to the school to be educated. “... It seems clear that every generation receives its chance of living a good physical life, and when to the fact of the large proportion of healthy new births we couple the evidence of improving health and physique in children who pass up the poorer elementary schools, _it seems clear that we are not dealing with a hereditary condition at all, but with a systematic postnatal neglect by ignorant parents, and that heredity, if it makes for anything, makes for recuperation, and so do the other social forces which are brought into play in dealing with the poorer population_.” (P. 31.)—Report of the Committee, Vol. II.