The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1911-02-02
HUMAN RACE IN NO
DANGER OF DYING
DR.. Woods Hutchinson, Noted
Medical Writer, Ridicules
Predictions Of Statisticians.

h 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 no logical right to expect to sur
yfye; 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
goes right on living, somehow, I'M
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 have 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 han the
rate Of increase of the race; therefore,
within so many a or decades the
disease Is certain to exterminate us.
The latest disease to be submitted to
this simple formula for calculating the
date of the end of the world-for 1t
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 clogging OF the body nlt-
ers known as Bright's disease.
1.-THE method is simplicity itself, and
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
al g. ~I~-yz Hlol A. = Al-
from Bright's disease have increased
in the past Is 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, it is
a 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 hardwood and
heartless cruelty to that, at
present rates of increase, every Amer
tcan-born citizen will nave become in
sane by 1866, forgetting apparently
that at least half of us are to be dead
of Bright's disease before that time.
and when you come to consider the
claims as race externinators Of nearly a
dozen equally-to-be-dreaded pathoIogic
perils, such as appendicitis, cancer
heart disease, tuberculosis, alcoholism
meateatlng, cigaretS, race suicide, sugar
and syphilis, it is obvious that within
half a century there will not be enough
human beings left to go round among
the diseases and furnish n meal a day
to each. So hat the process finally
lands US in the consoling conclusion
that just as surely as the human race
becomes extinct so will the diseases
for lack of anything to feed upon: and
perhaps the second conclusion may gel
ahead of the first. Certainly we are
at liberty to take u choice between
them and believe-as we generally dc
in matters of logic and conviction
whichever of the two we personally
prefer.
Every disease, like every dog, ha:
It's day; and this appears to be the day
of Bright's disease. In the first place
we nave no valid proof that these new
diseases are any more common nov
than they We're SO, a $50, or 500 year.
ago.. Diseases are new only in tn.
sense of having been recently discov.
cred.
Strange as i. may seem, we have n,
positive proof of the origin of a singl,
new serious disease since the dawn O
recorded history. At least 70 per cen
of all our serious diseases were wei
known to the Greeks n probably II
the Iissgsjy:p tt;a3;s And the probability I
that nearly half the remainder wer
also in existence then, though Bright
disease, for instance, was only clearl,
recognized and traced to it's anatomi
cal cause, the kidney, some 80 year
- u ~
turtles, and probably for 1000 or 800
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 tina,
the merest guesses."
IL. No.
French Fortunes.
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