Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1911-02-10
HUMAN RACE IN NO
DANGER OF DYING
DR.. Woods Hutchinson, Noted
Medical Writer, Ridicules
Predictions of Statisticians.

The human race is not really going
to become extinct, despite the alarm
Ing predictions of statisticians, accord
ing TO DR.. Woods Hutchinson, In an
article on THE Diseases OF Civiliza-
ton" in Hampton Magazine.
From the number and deadliness OF
the maladies that lie in wait for us we
have 10 logical right to expect to sur
yive; and yet we are here in defiance
of logic" declares DR.. Hutchinson, VINO
then goes on to say: "Of course, this
world is a dangerous place and few of
us ever get out of it alive; yet the race
goes right on living, somehow, un-
daunted In spite of the new and terri
BILE diseases that medical science keeps
discovering.
1T is easy enough to construct a
~prognostic for any disease which will
be perfectly logical and absolutely APP
palling. All you nave to do is to show
by vital statistics that it is increasing
at a certain rate per annum; that this
rate is so many times greater thar the
rate or increase OF the race; therefore,
within so many years or decades the
disease is certain to eXtermfnate us.
Thc latest disease to be submitted to |
this simple formula for calculating the
date of the end of the world-for II
does not make the ~faintest difference
TO us how long and stupidity the world
goes on spinning after we have stopped, !
the real end of the world is when we
ends that ~cloggfng Of the body fit
ers known as Bright's disease.
THE method is simplicity itself, ard
as convincing as it is simple. There APP
pears to be no escape from it's awful
conclusion, From unimpeachable vital
statistics taken from the records of
certain cities and areas in these Unit
ed States, it is shown that the deaths
from Bright's disease have increased
In the past 10 years 1876 per cent. AS
the rate of increase Of the community
from natural causes during the same !
time has been only is per cent, 1t is
q matter Of five or six decades before
perfectly obvious that it can only be
we shall all be dead Of Bright's dis
ease. |
THE only trouble with the method is
that 1t proves too much. In fact the
same modern jeremiah who has con-
structed such a terrible horoscope for
us under the sign of Bright's disease,
has unconsciously illustrated this de-
feet by incautiously taking up another
disease which he regards as a menace
to the future Of the race, viz, insan-
ity. Applying the same formula here
he actually has the hardihood and
heartless cruelty to announce that, at
present rates Of increase, every Amer
tcan-born citizen will have become in
a n by 1866, forgetting apparently
that at least half OF us are TO be dead
of Bright's disease before that time.
And when o come to consider the
claims as race eXterminators of nearly a
dozen equally-to-be-dreaded pathologiG
perils, such as appendicitis, cancer,
heart disease, tuberculosis, alcoholism,
meateating, cigaretS, rae suicide, sugar
and syphilis, it is obvious that within
LAIR .-.-r L. In - =
human beings left to go round among
the diseases M furnish one meal a day
to each. SO that the process finally
lands us in the consoling conclusion
that just as surely as the human race
becomes extinct so will the diseases,
for lac Of anything to feed upon: and
perhaps the second conclusion NAV gel
ahead of the first. Certainly we are
at liberty to take our choice between
them and believe-as we generally Ok
IN matters or logic and conviction
whichever of the two we personally
prefer.
Every disease, like every dog. has
Its day; n this appears to be the day
of Bright's disease. In the first place,
we have no valid proof that these new
diseases are any more common now
than they were so, a $50, or 500 years
ago. Diseases are new only in the
sense Of having been recently discov-
cred.
Strange as il may seem, we have no
positive proof of the origin of a single
new serious disease since the dawn of
recorded history. At least 70 per cent
of all our serious diseases were well
known to the Greeks and probably ia
the Egyptians. And the probability is
that nearly half the remainder were
also ii, existence then, though Drigitst
disease, for instance, was only clearly
recognized and traced to IT'S lnatOmi- J
cal cause, the kidney, some so years
ago. 1t had certainly existed for cen
turtles, and probably for 1000 or 5000
years before that. Obviously, any state
ments as to it's being more or less COM
mon in the 10Th century than, say,
the 14th, can be nothing better than
the merest guesses."