Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-09-28

TT wv many years OF really foDuSt health
II do you suppose the average person has
4 in the course of his or her lifetime?
AT a rough guess you would perhaps say
forty Or, to be on the safe side and avoid
overestimating, YOU might more cautiously
put the health pa1>~at thirty or twenty-five
years.
You would hardly go lower than that Sure
ly, you would argue, nearly everybody must
have at least twenty-five years of freedom
from health impairment. Many, you will add,
certainly have more than that.
Many certainly do. Yet medical men who
have most closely delved into health stats
tics insist that in our modern civilized world,
so many have less than twenty-five years of
full health that the average health span is
only ten years!
That seems incredible to you. Neverthe-
less, it is possible to gather from numerous
sources an appalling array of evidence to sup
port this seemingly incredible statement.
The world war, for one thing, revealed dis
heartening extent of i'll health even among
the naturally most vigorous element in the
population-young men in their twentieS.
Recall that of 100000 of these examined
for service in the United States army more
than one-thrd had to be rejected as unfit to
bear arms because of physical defects. And
correlate with this some astonishing facts
brought to light by health examinations for
insurance and other purposes.
AS for example, to quote Fisher and Fisk:
among large groups of clerks and en-
ployeS of banks and commercial houses in
New York City, with an average age of TWEEN
ty-seven and all supposedly picked men and
women, none were found free OF impairment
or of habits of living inviting impairment. Of
those with important physical impalrmentS ~
per cent were, prior to the examination, I'M
aware of impairment"
And in millions of instances impairment
of health begins exceedingly early. Accord
ing to Dr. Frederick Peterson a New York
physician of prominence and known to be eau
tiouSly conservative in statement:
"More than 100000 children of our H.
100000 now in the public schools have physi-
cal defects, most of them preventable and
remediable, such as heart and lung diseases
disorders of sight and hearing, diseased ade-
noids and tonsils, flat feet. weak spneS, i'm
perfect teeth, and malnutrition."
Note especially the phrase, physical de-
fects. most of them preventable and rem
edable"
If the average span of health today is only
ten years, it is not thus short because of con-
ditions inherent in modern civilization. These,
no doubt stress humanity as was not the case
in earlier and simpler times
But the great cause of the deplorably short
ealth span is the failure of people to take
the trouble to learn how to live hygienlcally.
Ignorance is to blame more than any other
single cause.
And until people begin to educate them
selves for health as zealously as they now
educate themselves for the earning of living
there can be no appreciate lengthenlng OF
the average health span. Popular education
in the ways of right living, together win
nopular application of the rules tor ngnt NV.
ing, is assuredy one of the greatest needs OF
time.
copyright, 1920, by the Associated News
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