The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-08-12

saw large machine for the generation
Of static electricity. By means of such
a contrivance a physician can send a
current of about 100000 volts through
a human body without harming it.
This is explained by the fact that while
the voltage is thus enormous there is
absolutely no ampereage, and without
ampereage electricity is neither danger
Gus nor useful in anything but medi-
cine Seeing this machine in the doc
tors office, | asked him what part he
expected electricity to play in the
medicine of the future.
I'VE know so little about the action of
electricity" he replied, that I hest
tate to allow myself to be quoted on
the subject. 1 do not expect, however,
any very great increase in electricity's
sphere of usefulness in medicine. 1t
will be very good thing for us to
study, but there are many things of
much greater Importance. The matter
of diet and methods of eating is one of
them.
AMERICAN EATING
''Rudyard Kipling recently wrote
about the Great American Pie Belt
He might almost have included the en-
tire United States in this characterize
ton, and he might have said that the
pie belt is in reality a dyspepsia belt.
This cooking of bad things, bad cook
ing Of good things and our national
habit of outrageously rapid eating are
great factors in whatever physical
weakness is characteristic of the nation.
The matter of hereditary transmits
sion of nervous troubles is also one
that must be studied with greater care
in the future than it has received in
the past Hereditary transmission of
mental peculiarities is particularly
strongly marked and while there is no
nervous disease which, like consump-
ton, is reasonably certain to be trans
mitted in detail, the children
of parents suffering from ner-
vogs troubles are almost Ger,
tain to be afflicted with a general
nervous demoralization-in extreme
cases epilepsy, semi-idiocy and complete
imbecility. Alcoholic nervous troubles
are particularly likely to produce the
latter horror Our great American
nervous diseases, neurasthenia, will, [
think, be more prevalent and more
dangerous in the next century than 1t
is now.
DOUBTS PRENATAL INFLUENCE.
I'm speaking of hereditary transmits
sion, 1 should state that | am not be-
lever in prenatal influence as it has
been described in some of your articles.
[ do not believe that any incontrovert-
BILE proofs of its existence have been
discovered. 1t is always possible to
prove almost any theory by means OF
a string of condolences, and believe
that most of the proofs of prenatal
influence have been of that nature.
People who have accepted the theory
have been apt to exclude from their cal
culations other important elements.
They have failed to take into consider
alton the matter of ativism for one
thing. There are hundreds of eXtraor-
binary things about childbirth which
none of us can entirely understand, but
do not believe that they can be eX-
planned through the theory of pre-
natal influence. One curious circum-
stances is that a widows child by her
second husband is likely to strongly
resemble her first husband. None of
us know why this is so, but it is true,
and every breeder of live stock will tell
you that it is true also of horses and
cattle.
Perhaps the most important subject
for consideration in thinking of our
nervous future is that of rational mar
riage. We would become an ideal gen.
Grafton in less than three generations
if every parent would insist that his
children should marry commonsensi-
bly, and scientifically.
''I do not know" said DR.. Jacoby, in
conclusion, that nerve specialists have
advanced much in the science Of cure
Cure is much less important than pre-
vention in any event. Prevention
should begin with the child as soon as
it is born. If there is the slightest
tendency toward nervous disorders in
either parent a possibility exists that
this will be transmitted to the child by
heredity Therefore, the child should
be watched with the greatest care
from the beginning, SO that the nerves
shall not be unduly Jared or wounded.
1t is,after all, impossible to separate
nerves from brains. They go together.
But more study has been given to the
causation of nervous trouble than to
the reasons for mental affections, and
along the latter line lies, perhaps, the
greatest hope of the future"
A FAMOUS BRAIN SPECIALISTS
VIEWS
This connection between the nervous
and the mental is so close that the
opinions of DR.. Lines, chief physician
in charge of the world famous Bloom
ingdale asylum for the insane, are
of great interest. His study has been
so thorough and his experience among
those of defective will power, nerve
force and general mentality so great
that he is qualified to speak as high
authority.
He is an optimist, too. His optimism
seems at first to have a reservation
but it is not serious. When 1 asked
him to tell me what stage of progress
he thought the race had reached
generally speaking-whether he
thought it had improved or degenera-
ted-he said:
has been before since the world began
but the average is lower. This may
sound half pessimistic. 1t is not
however We have developed a new
art which has not been entirely bene-
fetal. | mean the art of preserving
the lives of imperfect human beings
Defectives-idiets, imbeciles, lunatics
and originally diseased persons
now treated with skill and care thai
prolongs their lives far beyond the
point which like persons, reached fifty
or even seventy years ago. We are
resting and overcoming the law of the
survival of the fittest.
I'VE are keeping alive thousands, who
in times past would have died in in.
fancy or early youth. There is much
divergence of opinion concerning the
wisdom of this preservation of units
1t would be fatal to the race were it moi
Ior lHe Idct Inal TIE very uHIsIeSo VI
these detectives prevents them, to some
extent, from propagating. Still they dc
multiply, and thus, to some extent
actually harm the race, while their very
existence reduces the average of merit
for in striking an average all the bac
as well as the good must be counted
If ali defective persons could be pre-
vented from becoming parents, perfec-
ton would soon come.
Charity has done so much in this
way and has preserved so many de-