, 1888-02-08
TOWN LIFE FOR CHILDREN.
What n London Physician Says on tho
SubIcct-"Not u Natural IIre.m


What n london Physician Says on tho
SuLJcct-"Sot u Natural Life"
Physicians and moralists alike agree
that town life is unhealthy, unsound,
and hat but for the fact that the waste
is made good by the regular infusion of
healthy country blood, the race, as found
in the cities, would rapidly deteriorate.
DIR. Fothergill, of London, has recently
prepared n paper in which he shows the
effects Of town life on the human
body, y and he opens it with the assertion
that the subject is mot ono calculated to
flatter II national vanity.n He &c
counts for the degeneracy of the race
after this manner.
'Prowess in knight and peasant alike
was the one thing to be desired. But
with the development of and
the march of civilization, n change came
over the spirit which moves men. The
active brain was seen to be even more
valuable than physical proves. The in
vcntion of gunpowder left the stalwart
warrior shorn of much of his advantage
on the battlefield. Then the discovery of
steam completed his discontinue. The
day of the big man has passed away and
given place to the smaller, active brain
toiler. In these days of steam power,
an acute brain and u lissome hand are
much more desirable than a bravny
arm. The selection of the fttest has
taken another direction in the last few
centuries"
The injury, this writer asserts, begins
with the very existence of the child and
continues to the end. 'Instead of the
quiet, monotonous life of tile country,
the town child lives amid perpetual ex-
element" Further, he says of precocity,
which, to the average parent, seems so
full of promise: 1.-THE Psychologist looks
on it with suspicion, and the family
medical attendant knows that such n
child is liable to tubercular meningitis
(water ON the brain), and can estimate
the risks it run in the ordinary maladies
of childhood"
DIR. Fothergill runs counter to the
general opinion concerning food. He
says the premature development of the
nervous system tells upon the assimi-
lative organs of the town child; in con-
sequence he can not digest pastries,
dumplings and cake, and so feeds on
meat, fish and bread, which he can di-
gest. He says:
THE disturbance of tho nutritive bal
ance by p~recocity has starved the diges-
tive organs. Indigestion has started an
undesirable dietary; and excess of nitro
genized waste has led to the reversion of
the liver to the early primitive uric acid
formation. This, in its turn, entails a
long series of morbid sequences"
Here is n melancholy condition, truly.
What we ought to eat we cannot digest;
what we digest simply entails a 'long
series of morbid sequences" We cannot
follow the whole argument of the writer,
but we present his conclusions, which
are not altogether hopeless:
Clown life is not a natural life. If it
has certain advantages, it also has sundry
drawbacks. The perfect development of
the digestive organs has far reaching con-
sequences, as we have Just seen. Knowl-
edge must precede conduce. The realiza-
ton of the fact hat the digestive difficult
ties of town jewellers lead them to adopt
a dietary which is injurious in its after
results, will cause them to correct it.
Already, indeed, we see many blindly
starting out on n new track in the spread.
of vegetarianism, along with the Blue
Ribbon In this action they have not
waited for physiology TO pronounce an
authoritative opinion; but have acted on
their own account, guided by some in
stinCtive impulse. Notifications in our
food customs are required for town dwell
crs. They should have food which will
nourish them and sustain them, without
any bad after effects, and which they can
digest. Possibly, too, before long it will
lie found that some modification of the
existing scheme of education is desirable
in the interest of the weaker children.
Possibly, too, it may be found that little
town mites expand when restored to the
country, and can lead a more natural life
than that to which, at present, they arc
condemned by the growth of large towns,
which exercise such n malign influence
upon those who dwell therein, and es-
pecially those who are born and reared in
such towns journal.