The Washington herald., 1915-12-04
Still Another Discoverer.

Another medical expert, DR.. SchIapp has dis
covered that the human race is on the road te
decay; that the people are weaker than thev wcr,
twenty-five years ago; that there are more insane
more predetermined and more suffering from ner
vous diseases, and symptoms apparent today
which prevailed at the beginning of the fall oi
the Grecian and Roman empires" This is a
gloomy outlook, particularly a recurrence of the
symptoms that led to the fall OF the Roman En-
pire, but DR.. Schlapp like most medical experts
finds new causes for the symptoms. He finds the
causes to be alcohol industralism and the stress
OF modern life, He specifically names the automo-
bile and the movies and he asks how many people
arc engaged in the production of these dangerous
agents of nervous strain which arc breaking down
the human race.
The indictment is more general than that OF
most reformers and efficiency experts, in that i,
does not stop with alcohol but combines modern
industrialism and two chief amusements OF the
people. joy riding and moving pictures. William
Allen White has noted the apparent fact that the
auto, the movies and the music boxes have almost
driven from the field the cheap magazines, the
legitimate theater and the Chautauqua but he does
not lndlct them as the great agents of mental
and physical decay, because Kansas dotes on devil
wagons movies and music boxes aids to the
moral and physical development of superior race
in the Sunflower State.
1t is confusing to have too MANY EzekieIs in
the watch tower at and the same time all
sounding doleful warnings. but few of them agree
ing to the particular sins which arc leading to
this decadencc In this age Of prohibiting z
by law all that tends to mental moral and physical
decay the work of Congress becomes more conf
plex. If to prohibit the manufacture and
sale Of alcohol, must also prohibit the manu-
facture and sale of automobiles and moving picture
machines, and prohibit all industralism and the
stress of modern life, whatever that may be- Henry
Ford Judge Gary and Charley Chaplin all stand
at the bar with the saloon keeper as responsible
for the recurrence OF the symptoms which pre-
vailed at the beginning of the fall of the Crecian
and Roman empires.
The one consolation in the face OF these symp-
toms is that the Greeks and Romans did not have
whisky beer, devil wagons, movies great in
dustries much stress OF modern life They are
said to have taken life rather easy as compared
to the present generation of Adams descendants
There may also be doubt as to the lineage
OF the modern Ezekiels since the census returns
show greater development in varieties of medi-
cal and efficiency experts in the last twenty-five
years than is reported in any other professional
or industrial life. The family doctors all belonged
to one school twenty-five years ago and they treat
cd man for chills and chilblans, bronchitis and
bnnions rheumatism and ricketts,, ministerinp to
the head, the trunk and the extremites But to-
day the fellow who has tired feeling must pass
his purse through the hands of a score of medical
experts to know what patent medicine he must
take. The real trouble may be with the fellows
who are discovering the symptoms.