Physical efficiency; a review of the deleterious effects of town life upon the population of Britain : with suggestions for their arrest.

  • James Cantlie
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Physical efficiency; a review of the deleterious effects of town life upon the population of Britain : with suggestions for their arrest. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    republics rise, even religions and religious beliefs alter, but the soundness of the people physically and morally is the essence of national being. It is therefore no ephemeral question which at present concerns us, for it is none other than our continued existence as a virile race. Public Anxiety Regarding National Physique. That the possibility of physical degeneration has taken hold, justifiably or otherwise, upon the minds of British folk, there is abundant evidence; the subject is well-nigh in every one's thoughts, and many have written convincingly upon it. Not only in Britain, but in several other countries, the health standard of the people is causing anxiety; and, for the first time in the history of the British people, the subject has lately been seriously con- sidered by two Royal Commissions. Both of these inquiries practically resolved themselves into a question of the physical degeneration of the people ; and although the findings of these commissions and of other investigating bodies incline rather to the belief that the people of these islands are not really deteriorating, the very fact that such inquiries were, and are being, held, points in the direction that all is not well with us physically.
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