The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 4 (of 4): A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better BabiesHague, W. Grant (William Grant)
Science
The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 4 (of 4): A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies
Hague, W. Grant (William Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage
Since quarantine has been regularly established and the sewage system
made efficient in large cities, and since the sanitary plumbing laws
have been made compulsory, the general death rate has decreased
enormously. These regulations have been the product of regularly
educated medical or sanitary experts. No 'ism or 'ology has ever
established any scientific principle which has contributed to the
general welfare of the people. We no longer fear the plague, or typhus
or yellow fever, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, consumption, and other
diseases which once were a constant menace to the race. The plague, for
example, is practically limited to the Far East, where modern methods
cannot evidently be introduced efficiently. At one time it periodically
devastated Europe, where it cannot now get a foothold because of the
introduction of sanitary systems and hygienic principles.
Tetanus or lockjaw and hydrophobia are now amenable to cure while
formerly all cases were practically fatal. The mortality of diphtheria
has been reduced more than fifty per cent. Antiseptic precautions in
surgical cases, first introduced by the famous surgeon, Lord Lister,
have made possible and successful operations that formerly could not be
undertaken, thus broadening the whole field of surgical possibilities.
The Boer war and the war with Spain proved this truth in a way that
could not be denied. Smallpox is almost a medical curiosity in New York
City, where it once was a scourge. The mortality of childbirth has been
reduced to about one-fifth of what it was by the introduction of
antiseptics and anesthetics. The new methods of making and preparing
drugs, the sterilization and inspection of milk, the methods devised for
the care of and preparation of infant foods have all enormously
contributed to checking disease, to preventing disease, and to
increasing the length of life and its happiness.
These are all facts which may be proved by any one, no matter how
incompetent they may be. If we were to give up all these hard earned
victories, cease to investigate or experiment, deny the existence of
disease, and depend upon the questionable methods of hysterical
emotionalists we would soon find ourselves facing all the horrors of the
past. Can we afford to lose the priceless benefits we have achieved and
are attaining? Can we sit still and permit the profession of medicine,
which has always contained the best of the race in its membership, the
best intellects, the most sympathetic and unselfish characters, the
noblest and most steadfast souls, to be maligned and assailed, to have
its means of well-doing assaulted and threatened, when we know that it
should be supported and protected for the sake of all it has done in the
past in the interest of humanity?
Every mother should be acquainted with these facts so that she may lend
her influence in behalf of honest effort and honest inquiry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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