Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/309

Rh this latter opinion it is impossible not to dissent. No doubt in any epidemic improper treatment, or lack of treatment, even in the case of so mild a disease, may result in a death-rate high as compared to that which occurs in epidemics during which a proper treatment is pursued; but in view of the very considerable number of deaths caused even among the most resistant races by measles, as well as of the fact that it is so prevalent among such races that no non-resistant person escapes death from it, it is impossible not to believe that this elimination of the unfittest and survival of the fittest has resulted in some evolution in races that have long been familiar with the disease, and that therefore the virulent character of its epidemics among New World races, as compared to the epidemics among the races of the Old World, is due largely to the circumstance that the former races have not been rendered resistant by the survival of the fittest, whereas the latter have. We shall, however, be in a better position to consider this point after a close examination of the following extracts.

"In considering the reason why some epidemics of measles should have had a malignant type, great stress, in my opinion, is to be laid on mistakes of dieting and therapeutic treatment. Without doubt it is here that we have the explanation of the fact, that the disease in past centuries had a much more unfavourable type than in recent times. In forming an opinion, however, on this point, we should bear in mind that many epidemics of measles adduced in evidence from the eighteenth century were, in fact, outbreaks of scarlet fever. But there still remain a considerable number of true measles-epidemics of that period, whose malignant character was due in the last resort, as the chroniclers themselves admit, to the way in which the sick were treated. Even for many of the epidemics of the last thirty or forty years, remarkable for their very consider-