ARE WE DEGENERATING? IF SO, WHY?
By E. Stuver
E. Stuver, M. S., M. D., Ph. D. Journal of the American Medical Association, March 31, 1900. THIS is a question which is being seriously discussed by sages, philosophers, statesmen, physicians, and all persons interested in the welfare of the race; but to the physician, who is brought into such intimate contact with its causes and manifestations, and who by his training and opportunities is well prepared to throw a flood of light on it, to illumine its dark recesses and banish misconceptions, it should be a subject of absorbing interest. . . . There can be no doubt of the truth that the massing of enormous populations in large cities, with the impure air and bad sanitary surroundings, insufficient food, or excessive quantity, or improper kinds, of food, late hours and excesses of various kinds, together with the high-pressure of methods of living and the mad struggle for wealth, have done much to lower the health and vital resistance of a large part of our population. The crowded tenement houses and sweat shops, with all their physical evils and moral degradation, form a dark and corrupting current in the stream of our national life. And while it is true that some choice spirits in the great stream which is constantly pouring into the cities from the rural districts escape these contaminating influences, rise to high positions of honor and trust, and, by mingling with, infuse strength and vitality into, the decaying city populations, still the greater number are either engulfed or ruined by the putrid stream or are soiled by its foul contact. That this great change from rural to urban life has been followed by physical degeneracy in the population of to-day, as compared with our ancestors of fifty or one hundred years ago, no one will deny; and unless existing evils are speedily corrected, these physical defects and moral obliquities will become more pronounced with each succeeding generation as the population becomes more aggregated in the cities. Whether from an intellectual standpoint we are in advance of a few generations ago, is a very difficult matter to decide. There can be no question that the greater attention given to the study of the objects and phenomena of nature, which has led to so many discoveries and inventions, has greatly enlarged our mental horizon and given us a vastly more comprehensive view of the universe than was possessed by our ancestors. The facilities for travel and the ease of communication between the most distant parts of the civilized world have placed the mental products of the whole world within easy reach of every worker. This has unquestionably led to breadth and comprehensiveness of view, but at the same time, by presenting so many distractions to the mind, has caused a plethora, a satiety, in short a mental dyspepsia, which has led to the formations of many toxins, to defective assimilation and a very imperfect nutrition of the intellectual centers. While brightness, quickness, and the superficial, showy qualities of mind have been highly developed, power of concentration and profound thought has not been correspondingly increased. Indeed so intense is the competition and so strong the desire to attain an early fame or, more properly speaking, notoriety, that in order to secure this object almost any means is adopted in preference to long-continued investigation, hard work, and profound thinking. Nor is it difficult to point out at least some of the causes that have led to this state of affairs. Under the conditions which prevailed fifty years ago, most of the boys and girls of our country lived in the rural districts; they were brought into close contact with nature; they breathed its atmosphere, and were bathed in its influences. This communion with grand and beautiful objects—the majestic mountains, the vast and solitary forests breathing a language of their own, the expansive prairies, the mighty rivers and the rippling brooks—together with the exacting conditions on which success and even existence depended, infused health and vigor into their bodies, gave time for their minds to develop in accordance with the plan impressed by nature on the race throughout the ages, and inspired them with a strength and steadfastness of purpose which are sadly deficient at the present time. In those days boys and girls attended school, three, four, or five months in the year, and, even while in attendance, spent a large part of their time out of school hours in active work or outdoor sports, so that there was but slight opportunity of producing that mental tire and satiety which are so prevalent at the present time. . . . The result was mental stability, strength, and endurance, as well as a dogged determination to get down to the bottom of things, even if it took years or a lifetime to do it. But how different is everything at the present time! The child probably comes into the world loaded down by inherited weakness or tendencies to disease or crime, caused by the high pressure, unnatural life, dissipations, or vices, of its parents. When it gets hungry, which is in a very short time indeed, instead of being fed on the food designed by nature for its sustenance, it is filled up with cow's milk, or some manufactured nostrum; when it cries, it is given brandy, paregoric, or some other narcotic poison, to paralyze its digestive organs into submission; and still many wonder why indigestion is so prevalent among children, and why the use of narcotic poisons is so fearfully on the increase among the people. When scarcely out of the cradle, the child is grappled by the tentacles of our educational system, and they never relax their hold until he has run the gauntlet of the kindergarten, the graded school, high school, college, and university, and emerges a finished product of this system. While much of the work throughout the whole course is illogical, and sins against the symmetrical physical, intellectual, and moral development of the child, the youth, and the man, still it is during the early years of childhood and youth, when the brain is unstable and easily irritated, that the greatest amount of harm is done by the stuffing, cramming processes, the almost endless examinations, and the continual nervous strain and irritation which attend them. That the above statements are no mere jeremiad, but based on actual facts, is conclusively shown by thousands of physical and mental wrecks caused every year by this system: bodies which under better management might have become bulwarks of our national safety, and minds that, if allowed to develop in accordance with nature's laws, might have helped to advance and adorn our civilization instead of being obliged to drag out a weakened, miserable existence or to languish behind prison bars or within the walls of insane asylums. The enormously increased percentage of the insane, as compared with the whole population, within the last twenty or thirty years, is very strong proof that mental stability at least is not increasing. The American home has always been the upbuilder of physical health and integrity, the conservator of mental strength and power, and the preserver of moral rectitude and purity. The sanctity and influence of the home have always been among the strongest bulwarks against physical evils, the greatest safeguards against moral delinquencies, and a powerful protection against mental dissipation; and it naturally follows that anything which tends to lessen the influence exerted by the home upon the people must have a demoralizing effect. No one will deny that the home has lost much of the power which it once exerted over the people. Its sanctity has been invaded and its members have been drawn into clubs, societies, secret organizations, etc., which, if not positively injurious, at least do not possess the strengthening, tranquilizing, and uplifting influences of the home. While it may be claimed that the diffusion of education is so general that it is becoming a rare thing to find people who are not able to read and write, it is also true that crime is on the increase; and that this increase is not confined to the illiterate, but includes many with a good, nay, even a superior, education. The intellectual faculties have been cultivated at the expense of the moral nature, and the result is an asymmetric development—a social pariah, a degenerate. We are wont to boast about our progress, our liberty, and our freedom; but I fear that we forget that the most rapid and brilliant results are not always a sure criterion of the most enduring advancement; that liberty may not mean physical, intellectual, and moral disenthrallment; but license leading to the most abject slavery; and that freedom, instead of breathing forth a spirit that ennobles and uplifts mankind to a higher and better plane, may exhale a mephitic poison which degrades and besets all who come within the range of its baleful influence. No better illustration of the abuse of this so-called freedom can be cited than the material appearing in our modern newspapers. Their columns are not only filled with falsehood and misrepresentation, but reek with sensationalism and vileness, which make them unfit for decent homes. They bristle with advertisements of vile nostrums, which not only295defraud and swindle the unwary and ignorant, but carry death and devastation in their trail. In one column appears a panegyric on the elevating influences of the press, and in another the notice of an abortifacient remedy which carries death in its wake, and makes virtual murderers of the people who use it,—and if justice and right were done, would make the newspapers accomplices in the transaction. In another place can be seen the report of an eloquent sermon, accompanied in a near-by column by the heartrending appeal of some scoundrel and fakir to the real or imaginary victims—principally the latter—of youthful indiscretions or lost manhood. And still we are told that the newspapers are the great educators of the people! If guiding youthful minds into sensationalism and vice, if acquainting them with and showing them how to commit crime, if giving assistance to the vilest frauds and swindles and helping them to plunder a credulous and ignorant public,—if these and many other similar things for which the newspapers are directly responsible, are high and noble, then truly they are performing their mission in a highly successful manner. The spread of venereal diseases, tuberculosis, and carcinoma, together with the widespread use of stimulants and narcotic poisons, has done much to taint the blood and lower the vital resistance of the people, so that it is doubtful whether much of the progress made in sanitary science and the stamping out of contagious and infectious diseases has not been counterbalanced by a lowered general vitality. . . . Whether we, in adopting the corruption, profligacy, and crimes of Greece and Rome, shall follow Greece and Rome to degeneracy and extinction, will largely depend on our disposition and ability to stem the adverse tendencies which are sapping our physical vigor, undermining our mental strength, and debasing our moral nature. If we would avert the fate of Rome, we must avoid the evils that led to Rome's downfall.