Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/333

Rh, and particular attention is given to harmful living habits carrying potential impairment.

The noteworthy features of the record are as follows:

Among the insurance policyholders 65 per cent., and among the commercial groups 59 per cent., were sufficiently impaired to be referred to physicians for treatment with full report of the conditions found. In appropriate cases instruction in personal hygiene was also given.

Those in the commercial group were examined by trained examiners of the home-office staff, all of whom followed uniform methods and standards. All laboratory work was done at the home office, thus eliminating possible errors from differing standards of examination or technique. Those in the life-insurance group were scattered throughout the country, but were examined by physicians specially selected and instructed regarding the standards and methods to be observed.

Probably the most striking and important fact revealed by these examinations is the large percentage of young men showing arteriosclerosis, or thickening arteries. This condition is one of slow growth, and it is not, after all, surprising, in view of the high and increasing death rate from cardiovascular troubles in middle life, that we should find the beginnings of these chronic changes in early life.

The lesson from these figures is that we must often start in at 25 or earlier to prevent a death from apoplexy at 45.

The checking of the degenerative maladies is not such a spectacular matter as the stamping out of typhoid, yellow fever or tuberculosis, but the possibilities for effective work through personal hygiene and guidance in correct living habits are quite as great. All along the line we find magnificent opportunities for improvement, teeth, eyes, nose, throat, ears, circulation, living habits, etc.

Those who accept the average man as a fairly able-bodied citizen seldom realize how far below his attainable condition of physical soundness and efficiency he is.

To some, this may seem like a study in pessimism. It may smack of pathological detective work which seeks to uncover human frailties and conjure up a Cassandra-like vision of "Woe, woe, to the human race." This is a superficial and pitifully inadequate view of activities fraught with tremendous possibilities for racial advancement.

What about the harmful effect of mental suggestion? For some