Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/670

654 of the public health, but the public itself is far too little occupied with it.

I shall speak only of national health. In consideration of his own self, a man may be deemed healthy who lives idle, comfortably, and long; who enjoys every day of his life, and satisfies every natural appetite without consequent distress. And when such a one dies of old age, with a timely, uniform, and painless decay of every part, he may be deemed to have been completely healthy. And yet it is possible that he may have enjoyed his own health in the midst of a poor, unhealthy, and unhappy nation, to which he has done no good whatever.

If we could find a nation composed of people such as this man, we might be bound to speak of them as healthy; but we should be right in calling the whole nation utterly unsound, and might safely prophesy its complete stagnation, or its quick decline and fall.

It is not health such as this—idle, selfish, unproductive—that we want to promote either in the individual or in the multitude. Comfortable idleness, such as that of some vagrants and fine gentlemen, is a despicable result of good health; it is what no thorough man would ever wish for. In view of the national health and welfare, the pattern healthy man is one who lives long and vigorously; who in every part of his life, wherever and whatever it may be, does the largest amount of the best work that he can, and, when he dies, leaves healthy offspring. And we may regard that as the healthiest nation which produces, for the longest time, and in proportion to its population, the largest number of such men as this, and which, in proportion to its natural and accumulated resources, can show the largest amount and greatest variety of good work.

Here let me insert, as an interpretation clause, that in all this and what is to follow the word "man" means also "woman," and "he" means also "she"; and that, when I speak of work, I mean not only manual or other muscular work, but work of whatever kind that can be regarded as a healthy part of the whole economy of the national life. And I shall take it for granted that a large portion of all national welfare is dependent on the work which the population can constantly be doing; or, if I may so express it, that the greater part of the national wealth is the income from the work which is the outcome of the national health.

It is a common expression that we do not know the value of a thing till we have lost it; and this may be applied to the losses of work which are due to losses of national health. There are very few cases in which these can be estimated with any appearance of accuracy; but I am helped to the best within our present reach by Mr. Sutton, the Actuary to the Registry of Friendly Societies. In his office are the returns, for many years past, of the sickness and mortality among the members of a very large number of these societies; and, among other things, there is recorded the number of days which each member, when