A common mistake is to regard "diseases" as cured and health restored when the symptoms have ceased. In reality the patient is in the same condition he was just prior to their appearance. It is still a long way back to full health. There is much road that must again be traversed before one arrives at the health which he enjoyed before he began the evolution of his sufferings. Man regards the appearance of symptoms as the beginning of "disease" and their disappearance as its end; and each new appearance of symptoms of "disease" as a new "disease", instead of merely new incidences in one general and continuous condition.

Biologists tend to confine the term degeneration to "a retrograde condition of the individual resulting from a pathological variation of the germ cell." Since, however, deterioration may and does occur in individuals derived from ideal germ cells, we should include in this definition all permanent pathological variations of the somatic cells.

Dr. Oswald says, "every birth is a hygienic regeneration" and, while it is true that thousands of babies are born dead and thousands more are born defective, it is literally true that each new born child is a fresh effort of nature to produce a perfect man or woman. It is asserted that 80%, of babies are born perfect, meaning normal.

But none of these children ever reach perfection. They either die early or else are badly "spoiled in the making." Only a little more than half reach maturity. Of these who reach maturity, 80 per cent are below normal at the time "when they should be at their best. This in a country that boasts of its wealth and plenty; a country where there is a super-abundance of food and a good climate. Certain it is that the adult male and female of the human species is a very disappointing animal. Adults are, in the main, mere caricatures of human beings; not because nature fails to go on with her efforts at perfection, but because of the many and varied influences, which interfere with growth and development and frustrate the efforts of nature to produce a perfect being.

The death rate among infants during the first and second years of life is very high. The sufferings of those that do not die, are enormous. Seventy-one out of every thousand children born in this country die in the first year of life, a higher infant death rate than that of any civilized land where records are kept, higher, even, than the rare for war-ravaged Belgium and France in the years immediately following the war.

That the weakening and deterioration of our bodies begins in infancy and childhood, where it does not begin in embryo or even in the germ plasm, is evident from the fact that one-fourth to one-third of the children of America are suffering with what is, by medical men, recognized as malnutrition.

The United States Board of Education reports that of the children in this country there are 400,000 suffering with organic disease; 1,000,000 afflicted with some form of tuberculosis; 1,000,000, presenting spinal curvatures; 6,000,000 with enlarged tonsils and other gland "diseases," 10,000,000 have enlarged lymphatic glands; 15,000,000 have physical defects; 4,000,000 suffer with malnutrition. It is evident from these figures giving 4,000,000 suffering with malnutrition while, 10,000,000 have defective teeth, that not all cases of malnutrition are included as such.

During the Boer war, three out of five who applied for service in the English Army were rejected as physically unfit for service. A commission appointed to find the causes for this, reported that malnutrition during early childhood was one of the leading causes. During the World War, Premier Lloyd George declared England to be a C 3 nation--a rather low classification.

Over thirty years ago Dr. Alexander T. MacNichol, of New York, found, upon examining, 10,000 children in the schools of that city, that 35 per cent. had heart derangement, 20 per cent. had spinal defects, 27 per cent. had tuberculosis, 60 per cent. suffered from anemia, 15 per cent. suffered with some nervous disorder. He said that if the percentage of organic and functional defects among school children held good throughout the city, and those so suffering were excluded from school, "two-thirds of our schools would be compelled to close for lack of pupils."

Basing his estimates on the findings of physical defects found in 1,4000 school children in New York City, Dr. Chas. C. Burlingham, formerly Pres. of the Board of Education of that city, said that twelve million children in the United States had physical defects at that time. Based on the findings in New York City and assuming that they would hold true throughout the country, Dr. Burlingham estimated that there were then in the United States, 1,440,000 ill-nourished children, 5,615,000 with enlarged glands, 6,925,000 with defective breathing. He estimated for the city of New York, 48,000 children with malnutrition, 187,000 with enlarged glands and 230,800 'with defective breathing.

These are the children that supplied most of the men of draft age during the World War. With this poor start in life they got no better. Eighty per cent. of the men of the draft were physically below normal; normal meaning the medium, the typical, and not the ideal or perfect, while one third of them were not able to pass the much lowered standards of physical fitness demanded by a country desperate to secure men. Something like fifty per cent. of those examined in the selective draft during the World War were rejected as unfit. Out of the first draft 500,000 of our young men, in the very flower of their manhood, were rejected as physically unfit for service. In peace times only about sixteen out of every hundred applicants to join the army pass the medical test. Bad sight, faulty speech, and flat feet are the chief causes of failure. Among those who are accepted there are many minor defects.

In 1924 it was estimated that there were in this country, 20,000,000 children of school age. Of these, 14,000,000 suffered with some serious recognizable physical defect; 10,000,000 had tuberculosis ; 10,000,000 had serious tooth troubles, 2,000,000 suffered from some grave form of malnutrition; 1,000,000 showed the first signs of nervous disorders, while all of them had frequent colds and other functional "disorders." None of them possessed perfect health. The medical examiners of Cleveland, Ohio, reported a few years ago that 98,000 children in that city suffer with recognizable physical defects. In Washington, D. C, 90 per cent. of the children, when they enter school at the age of six, present recognizable physical defects. A study of Chicago's school children showed that 85 per cent. have recognizable physical defects, as follow: 86,000 had defects of palate and teeth; 25,000 had defective vision, 13,000 had enlarged thyroid glands, 10,000 were anemic; 10,000 had enlarged lymphatic glands; 6,000 had pulmonary "diseases"; 4,000 had skin "diseases"; 1,000 to 2,000 were suffering from each of the following: nervous "diseases", heart "disease", rickets, bone and joint defects, defects of speech, defects of hearing.