Science has made great efforts to exterminate contagious diseases, and to cure or alleviate those which are organic in character - and with enormous success; but she has made practically no effort at all to prevent those physical troubles which are caused by our habits or by our ignorance of ourselves. The general public know nothing whatever about the functions of their bodies, or, indeed, of the functions of their food. To the man in the street one form of food is as good as another - better only or worse when it conflicts with his taste. The rich indulge in costly productions, while the poor affect the same style in their limited way. The fact that some foods are detrimental to the health, which they ultimately destroy in the great majority, is less understood than the fact that over-eating is a dangerous habit. If the laws of health were studied as acutely as the appetite, dress, pleasures and means of "getting on," we should be a different people - a robust, an increasing, a happier and more prosperous race. But the time is not yet, the majority will continue to adhere to the remarkable words, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," and this literally represents the attitude of many practical, educated and religious men, who in some mysterious way appear to believe that "all men are mortal but themselves."

Pure air is another condition of health and long life. Although man cannot live for five minutes without air he may live without food for a week; he subordinates pure air to personal comfort, or ignores it altogether. Air is excluded from our bedrooms as though it were the poisonous gas which we exhale from the lungs, and which we take every care to preserve that we may inhale it again, by ignoring ventilation. Travellers by rail are frequently crowded in a third-class compartment with both windows closed, rejecting any suggestion to the effect that air is essential to life in their fear of catching cold. I have visited a patient lying in the last stage of consumption in a bedroom of some 12 ft. by 9 ft. in which there was no ventilation whatever. The window was permanently closed; there was no fireplace, and consequently no chimney; while the door was closed too. The man who is compelled to labour in an office, a factory, a shop, or a warehouse, where the air is impure, as it usually is in crowded towns, can, and must if he would live a normal life, pass abundance of fresh air through his lungs by taking long walks away from the streets and habitations of men, where alone he can obtain what he wants. A man walking at a pace of four miles an hour passes five times as much air through his lungs as a man sitting, while a man sitting inhales more than a man lying or sleeping. The carbon of food, which acts chiefly as fuel in warming the body and providing for the exercise of energy, is burnt when it comes into contact with the oxygen of the air, which passes into the lungs, as perfectly as coal is burnt in a stove. If, however, the passage of air through the stove is restricted the fire burns imperfectly, or it goes out. It is precisely the same in the human body. If the breathing is restricted, or the air is impure, something goes wrong, and the body suffers accordingly.

If a healthy man observes the laws of health he will remain healthy until he is worn out. He cannot acquire disease from pure air, a clean body, exercise, or the moderate consumption of suitable food. If, however, these laws are ignored, it is only a question of time for the human machine to break down. There is only one course to pursue in order to live wisely and long - there is no halfway house - and that way is found in the constant observation of these laws. By the adoption of this course the system is hardened and unaffected by those changes which occur in the weather, and in our everyday life, but which immediately affect the unfit.

We are shown by our official statisticians that while only one-half the ministers of religion, followed by farmers, die at the average age of all men, the publican dies at three times - and the barman four times - their speed. While man lives longer by ten years than he did a century ago, or by twenty than he did a century before that, we are still far from reaching the age to which we should live if we took greater care. We live faster, and nerves, heart disease, tuberculosis and determination to "get on" are killing almost as many men as have been saved by improved sanitation and hygiene. We should never work against the grain - live in the country as much as we can, eat only three meals a day, and repudiate afternoon-tea - a suggestion which will not meet with the approval of women.

How far we shall advance in the improvement of the character of the race, as distinct from its physique, is another matter. Woman plays a great part here. Many of the noblest, gentlest, purest and most unselfish characters prefer to glorify the celibate life. In their anxiety to accomplish good works, and to obey the teaching of Scripture, many disobey the universal and instinctive law of life - a law in which the most beautiful of all the attributes of man is involved, "Be fruitful and multiply" - the law of Love. Thus posterity is deprived of characteristics which, inherited from some of the best of mankind, would help to lift the race to a higher and holier plane, while vice perpetuates its progeny unchecked.