Civics and Health

Civics and Health, by William H.
Allen

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Title: Civics and Health
Author: William H. Allen
Contributor: William T. Sedgwick
Release Date: May 8, 2007 [EBook #21353]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: LOUIS AGASSIZ "A natural law is as sacred as a moral
principle"]

CIVICS AND HEALTH
BY
WILLIAM H. ALLEN
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH
FORMER SECRETARY OF THE NEW YORK COMMITTEE ON
PHYSICAL WELFARE OF SCHOOL CHILDREN, AUTHOR OF
"EFFICIENT DEMOCRACY" AND "RURAL SANITARY
ADMINISTRATION IN PENNSYLVANIA," JOINT AUTHOR OF
"SCHOOL REPORTS AND SCHOOL EFFICIENCY"
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
WILLIAM T. SEDGWICK
PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN THE MASSACHUSETTS
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON · NEW
YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL
COPYRIGHT, 1909 BY WILLIAM H. ALLEN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
910.4
The Athenæum Press GINN AND
COMPANY · PROPRIETORS · BOSTON · U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION
It is a common weakness of mankind to be caught by an idea and
captivated by a phrase. To rest therewith content and to neglect the
carrying of the idea into practice is a weakness still more common. It is
this frequent failure of reformers to reduce their theories to practice,
their tendency to dwell in the cloudland of the ideal rather than to test it
in action, that has often made them distrusted and unpopular.
With our forefathers the phrase mens sana in corpore sano was a high
favorite. It was constantly quoted with approval by writers on hygiene
and sanitation, and used as the text or the finale of hundreds of popular
lectures. And yet we shall seek in vain for any evidence of its practical
usefulness. Its words are good and true, but passive and actionless, not
of that dynamic type where words are "words indeed, but words that
draw armed men behind them."
Our age is of another temper. It yearns for reality. It no longer rests
satisfied with mere ideas, or words, or phrases. The modern Ulysses
would drink life to the dregs. The present age is dissatisfied with the
vague assurance that the Lord will provide, and, rightly or wrongly, is

beginning to expect the state to provide. And while this desire for
reality has its drawbacks, it has also its advantages. Our age doubts
absolutely the virtues of blind submission and resignation, and cries out
instead for prevention and amelioration. Disease is no longer regarded,
as Cruden regarded it, as the penalty and the consequence of sin.
Nature herself is now perceived to be capable of imperfect work. Time
was when the human eye was referred to as a perfect apparatus, but the
number of young children wearing spectacles renders that idea
untenable to-day.
Meanwhile the multiplication of state asylums and municipal hospitals,
and special schools for deaf or blind children and for cripples, speaks
eloquently and irresistibly of an intimate connection between civics and
health. There is a physical basis of citizenship, as there is a physical
basis of life and of health; and any one who will take the trouble to read
even the Table of Contents of this book will see that for Dr. Allen
prevention is a text and the making of sound citizens a sermon. Given
the sound body, we have nowadays small fear for the sound mind. The
rigid physiological dualism implied in the phrase mens sana in corpore
sano is no longer allowed. To-day the sound body generally includes
the sound mind, and vice versa. If mental dullness be due to imperfect
ears, the remedy lies in medical treatment of those organs,--not in
education of the brain. If lack of initiative or energy proceeds from
defective aëration of the blood due to adenoids blocking the air tides in
the windpipe, then the remedy lies not in better teaching but in a simple
surgical operation.
Shakespeare, in his