Americans Are Deteriorating Physically by L. L. C.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 23, 1915

Americans Are Deteriorating Physically

By L. L. C.

THOSE who think the world is getting better are inclined to emphasize the increase of knowledge of means to prevent contagious diseases and to secure immunity by vaccination, while they pass by unmentioned the rapid increase of organic diseases, which spells disaster if it continues. Elmer E. Rittenhouse, president of the Life Extension Institute, in an article in the New York Times of September 7, well states the real conditions:—

Vital statistics indicate that, as a body, Americans are physically deteriorating. If the present indicated trend of physical decline in the power of the American people to resist the wear and tear of modern life continues, the time will come when we shall have to depend upon a weak, soft-muscled, flimsy-fibered people for the defense of the republic and the perpetuity of the race.

There are plenty of people who will say that they have noted no such tendency, but we cannot depend upon observation in our own environment for such information. Nor must we attempt to judge the trend in the nation by our observations in any one class of people. We must take the American people as a body. And when we do this, we find the resisting power of the heart, arteries, and kidneys, which work incessantly from birth to the grave, has steadily declined.

These organs are breaking down and giving way too soon. The increase in mortality in three decades from these causes has been about one hundred per cent, and it is confined to no particular class or element of the population. It is increasing everywhere. L. L. C.