Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-10-26
SOURCES OF ILL HEALTH
BY H. Addington Bruce

"a E ANKIND takes a long, long, while to
INE learn certain well-nigh self-evident
~ facts. OF this | was reminded the other
day when l CHANGED upon a passage from an
address delivered in England by Charles
Kingsley more tain half a century ago.
Kingsley, as the older among my readers
will recall, was famous in his day as a preach
er, a poet, and a novelist. Not few of his
books-notably 1.-THE Water Babies" "Hypa-
tIa," and westward Ho."-still command
widespread attention.
Jealous for the good of mems souls, he
less intent on promoting their bodily
welfare. 1t was with the latter aim in view
that, in 1857, he appeared before an associa-
ton for "the diffusion of sanitary science"
and said in part
Three persons out Of four are utterly I'M
aware of the general causes of their own i'll
health and Of the i'll health Of their children,
They talk of their 'afflictions,' and If they be
pious people they talk of the will of God and
of the visitation Of God
81 do not like to trench upon those matters
But when I read in my Book and in your
Book that it is not the will of our Father in
Heaven that one of these little ones should
PERISH it has come to my mind sometimes
with very great strength that this may Lave
q physical application as well as a spiritual
one-that the Father in Heaven who does not
created that child's body for the purpose of
it's not dying except in good old age.
when one sees an unhealthy family, then
in three cases out of four, if one takes time,
trouble and care enough, one can, with the
help Of the doctor who has been attending
them, run the evil home to very different
cause than the will of God; and that is to a
stupid neglect, a stupid ignorance, or, what is
just as bad, stupid indulgence"
rjII
Neglect, ignorance, and indulgence are not
merely among the chief causes of ill-health.
With poverty they constitute the leading
causes.
And again and again one finds them respon-
sible for serious ilI-health even in the case Of
persons who cannot plead poverty as an ex-
tenuating factor.
Multitudes, learned in other ways, perversely
refuse to master and apply for their own good
the laws of healthfUI living. Multitudes, know
ing those laws, perversely ignore them. Their
theory seems to be that they possess a special
immunity Soon or late circumstances pain
fully impress upon them the unsoundness OF
that theory.
Again and again, too, heredity is blamed
for an ill-health which is largely of the vic
TINS own making.
People, it cannot be too clearly understood,
do not as a rule directly inherit a disease. Al
worst what they inherit is a predisposition to
this or that disease. By the taking Of special
precautions they may go all their lives with
out suffering from the maady to which
heredity has predisposed them.
Few there be, though, who take the needed
precautions Like their more favored brethren
the handicapped ones ignore or defy the laws
of health-only the sooner to suffer, because oj
their inherited handicap, the penalty always
visited upon ignorance and defiance
,o0T+1 ~ ;ro ic nt ms Nf
or of Gods designing. Mostly it comes from
follY-the folly Of man.