But leaving out surgery, there has been a tremendous increase in those diseases that we term degenerative, even though the zymotic group has for some unaccountable reason been less prevalent than formerly.

What we seem to have gained in lowered mortality from tuberculosis is swallowed up by a far greater increase in cancer.

What we have seemed to gain in lowered prevalence and mortality from the ordinary diseases of childhood has been more than offset by the increase in such conditions as heart failure (whatever this may mean), Bright's disease or other kidney degenerations, diabetes, which is still on the percentage increase, or the nerve degenerations, including insanity.

Statistics show an average lengthening of life, but this is chiefly due to better infant conservation, better housing conditions, better environment, more appreciation of the outdoors, of exercise, and perhaps also to the great interest recently aroused in foods.

All of this is offset by the far greater increase in degenerative diseases, more unfit living to greater ages than formerly, for which medicine takes credit, but it is a moot question whether this credit (if there be such) should go to medicine or whether it should be taken as evidence that the race is developing a tolerance for the destructive agencies of both medicine and surgery, for neither can by any stretch of the wildest imagination be considered constructive in character.

With all our declining health rate, which none can doubt, we still take Olympic contests quite regularly, though not so regularly as formerly, showing that while the mass may be degenerating slowly, yet the individual young man can succeed in so developing athletic efficiency that we send abroad a set of athletes that any country may be proud to claim.

The trouble is wholly with Mr. Plain Citizen, the man who stays at home and is satisfied with conditions as they are, or perhaps not wholly satisfied, but believing his circumstances prevent any effort at change.

His father, his grandfather, lived as he does, at least in compliance with environment, for the average citizen is a well-meaning man, not inclined to kick unless stepped on ruthlessly, patient to the nth degree, uncomplaining even though he feels many times that he is somehow getting the short end of the stick.

He was raised to accept what is offered at the table, perhaps quoting St. Paul's advice to one of his pupils: "Eat what is set before you, asking no questions for conscience sake."

Too many people have quoted this same suggestion of St. Paul without reading what immediately preceded it, for he was asked for advice when eating at tables on which was served meat that had been offered to idols, and his reference to conscience shows that it was merely this phase to which he referred.

When the average citizen realizes that he has the control of his almost entire destiny he will wake up to the fact that he is himself largely to blame for his state, whether this has been to his liking or not, for he is just what he eats daily.

Perhaps his father ate all wrong and lived to a good old age, but did he transmit to this son as good a heredity as would have been the case had he known how to live?

Look over the average family records and you will find that but few marriages ever result in anything beyond the fourth generation.

Anthropologists tell us this, as relates to American families, and while there are many instances of many more generations in certain families, yet if we strike an average with those that are either wholly unproductive of progeny or whose family tree disappears after the first or the second generation, it is no doubt true as stated that the average lies between the third and the fourth generation before the tree becomes extinct.

We do not believe in transmitted or inherited disease, for there is too much evidence that disease is not directly inherited; but surely parents do transmit to their children no better physical equipment than they themselves enjoy, else the stock breeder is all wrong in his reasoning, and there is nothing in eugenics.

So while I may have sufficient vitality to carry on to a good old age in spite of wrong habits of life, yet my son will never be able to do as much or carry on as far, for I will have robbed him of a part of his birthright by my own habits of living. Is it then any wonder that the average American family falls a little short of the fourth generation?

Experiments carried out in the laboratories of nutrition on the various small animals show either total inability to generate progeny or a failure of each succeeding generation, if there is the slightest deficiency in certain of the essentials of diet.

May this not be the cause of so much unfertility in the average human family? May it not be a large cause of the shortening family trees that are the rule?

Many are inclined to blame on the jazzy habits of the times the lowering efficiency of the younger generation.

Night life is enervating, of course; the excitement that scarcely knows bounds takes its toll of nerve force without question; the use of tobacco, whiskey, tea, coffee, the excitement of sports, the dance, jazzy parties, all are causes of the national enervation, but are a mere detail of the enervating causes of the present state of declining vitality, and are of but minor importance as compared with the national food habits. This means that if one were fed entirely as one should be, he could then indulge in a certain amount of these enervating pleasures without perceptible effect.

We cannot by any process of reasoning make something out of nothing, even if successful promoters, and even so we cannot get into the body the wrong foods and expect them to build a correct physique.

What is food, anyway? Food is nothing more or less than replacement material. We use up energy supplied by the oxidation or burning up of foods within the system, not in the digestive tract, for there it is only prepared for use in the body, but in the blood stream itself, in the intimate tissues of the body, in the muscles, the glands, the brain itself.