may be summed up in one word-exercise. Mathews has well said: "The first requisite of success in life is to be a good animal. In any of the learned professions a vigorous constitution is equal to at least fifty per cent. more brain." Cicero says: "It is exercise alone that supports the spirits and keeps the mind in vigor." One of the most prominent physicians in the world gives it as his firm opinion that four-fifths of the ills from which human beings suffer are caused by an insufficient amount of exercise. Use is the condition of development of all the powers of the mind and body. Facility of action comes by habit. Inactivity and idleness induce torpidity. and effectually retard growth of every kind. Exercise in all its variety, bodily and mental, is the instituted means for the methodical development of all our powers, under the control of the will.

The advantages to every man of a well-built body kept in thorough repair are beyond compute. Who needs a strong, vigorous, healthy body more than the physician? Enduring severe mental strain for hours-even days at a time, with broken rest at night, irregular, hurried meals, and often exposed to the contagion of virulent diseases, what could be a greater guarantee of immunity from disease and a longer period of usefulness to humanity than a sturdy, muscular, thoroughly sound body?

Wm. Blaikie, whose book on " How to Get Strong and How to Stay So" has been an inspiration to me, and should be read by every one interested in this subject, has said of us:

"No men are more beloved in our land today than its physicians. Able, skillful, brave, tireless; going straight into contagion and danger, from which all others shrink and flee; allowed no rest at church, at home, at social gathering, in bed even, but hurriedly mercilessly to duty and always going. It was a high tribute to their nobility, when Ian McLaren, in his visit here, was told over and over again, in many parts of our land, that when his lion-hearted Doctor Willum MacLure' risked his life so often to save his patient, loved in that simple Scottish glen as no one else was loved, and who won all American hearts too-That's just the way our doctor does!" What is sweeter to any true man than the esteem and affection of

his fellows? And who gets it like the doctor? And he is appreciated more than he is aware of. And it must have been always so, from 'Luke, the beloved physician,' right down to our day.

"But, grand as is their work, is there not a part of it which they omit, yet might easily know, and would often find of rare value?

"The medical man studies anatomy, physiology, hygiene, materia medica, chemistry, surgery, obstetrics and other branches. But where do they fit him to be a physical director? To deal with the weak body, not with medicine, but with exercise in the countless cases where that is the real need?"

We are bound to admit the justness of the criticism while appreciating the high tribute he pays to the profession. I quote from Dr. S. Weir Mitchell: "When exposure to outof-door air is associated with a fair share of physical exertion, it is an immense safeguard against the ills of anxiety and too much brain work. I presume that very few of our great generals could have gone through with their terrible task if it had not been that they lived in the open air and exercised freely." Says Dr. Austin Flint: "I would rank exercise and an outof-door life far above any known remedies for the cure of disease." Professor Richards, of Yale College, well says: "It will be found that athletes in general are beginning to learn that to excellence and success even in any special kind of exercise, a uniform muscular development contributes quite as much as the training of a few sets of muscles." He also cites President Garfield: "There is no way in which you can get so much out of a man as by training; not in pieces, but the whole of him. And the trained men, other things being equal, are to be the masters of the world."

6

Wm. Blaikie relates the following: "A well known professor in one of the great medical schools in New York city said one day to his class: Young gentlemen, your liver is a sponge-squeeze it.' Well you do not squeeze it much in ordinary walking and none at all in sitting still, but when your hands go high over your head, or you sway your body far over to either side or backward or forward, you do squeeze it. and greatly aid it in its usual work."

In commenting on the life of Dr. John A. Broadus, one of the most celebrated Baptist ministers in America, a scholar and a noble man, a friend wrote:

"Dr. Broadus never had a strong physique, but by diligent care of himself and by heroic physical training, he was enabled to extend a life of almost incessant toil nigh to the limit of three score and ten.

"Physical exercise was to him a necessity. While at the University of Virginia he took a course of physical training under a director and doubled his most important measurements in one term."

It is not the province of this paper to enter into a discussion. of the technique of physical culture. There are many good systems, almost any of which if carefully and perseveringly followed will yield marvelous results.

And when such illustrious men as John A. Broadus, Wm. E. Gladstone, Wm. Cullen Bryant, Henry Ward Beecher and many others whom I might mention have found time to spend a small part of each day in regular systematic bodily exercise, and attribute their successful careers and their long lives to this one habit, surely the subject is worthy the serious consideration of everyone who desires to attain a higher standard of physical manhood.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF CONSUMPTION BY THE NEGRO RACE IN

THE SOUTHERN STATES?*

JAMES S. RAWLINS, M.D.

DANCYVILLE, TENN.

THIS question, both as a matter of humanity and economy, should appeal to every intelligent citizen of the South.

That tuberculosis is rapidly increasing in the negro race and by their ignorance and carelessness becoming a serious menace to the health of the whites, is very evident to every

Read before Tri-State Med. Assn. (Miss. Ark. and Tenn.) Memphis, Nov. 15, 1904

practitioner of medicine. From the fact of our superior intelligence, and that the law-making and executive power is in our hands, the restriction of this pest not only becomes one of the white man's burdens, but his duty to his race. To adopt any practical methods for the suppression of the disease, it would be well enough to investigate the cause for its rapid increase since the emancipation of the negroes, as prior to that time it was a comparatively unknown disease in this race. The same means which prevented consumption prior to emancipation, if they could be enforced now, would produce like results, and in a decade or two the negro would be the exempt race again. Let us turn back and investigate the conditions existing at that time which, without any knowledge of the infectious nature of this disease, and which were not enforced for sanitary purposes, so effectually protected them. The negroes during that period represented a money value, and their owners were interested in their health and welfare. With but few exceptions, they were well clothed, well housed and well fed, and when sick were carefully nursed and had the best medical attention. Their children were started into life. with better constitutions by inheritance, which were preserved by the best sanitary surroundings. Every farmer lived upon his farm, his house was his castle, and his word was the law of the place. Regular hours were observed, the work was systematic and the meals regular and wholesome, and when the day's work was done, the evenings were spent in the light, healthy amusements of that time. The thought of the music of the banjo, the plantation songs, with their improvised refrain floating out from the old country home, brings back recollections of a happy, healthy tenantry unknown in the world except in the sunny South.

But what of that race now? Thrown adrift in their ignorance without a controlling authority or a directing hand, they violate every rule of hygiene that once protected them. Without love for home or home amusements, they spend their time congregated in places of vice, amusement or worship which are hotbeds of infection.

No restrictions are placed over the consumptive; he keeps open house and lives out his life in spreading infection, and

when he dies or moves out, his house and bed will be occupied by others who are ignorant that they risk their lives by such occupation.

Another cause of the increase of consumption in the negro race is the increased prevalence of venereal diseases. Prior to emancipation, syphilis, with its devitalizing and hereditary influences, was almost unknown, and exerted little influence in producing consumption; now it might be named as the chief cause in reducing resistance to bacterial invasion. The burden of suppressing this pest is upon the medical profession of the South. There are but two methods by which it can be accomplished-education and legislation. These two methods should go hand in hand and be co-operative. But in this case, education is too remote, the race would be exterminated by infection before sufficient knowledge could be imparted to produce the observance of the simplest laws of health. Effective legislation and its enforcement is our only hope.

Anti-spitting and such laws are well enough, but they are but straws upon the surface of the ocean in comparison with what can and must be done to accomplish our purposes.

The weak point in state sanitation is the insufficient number of health officers with power to enforce sanitation. One health officer for each county or town is insufficient. There should be one in each civil district whose duty should be to hunt up, if not reported, all cases of consumption, typhoid fever and other infectious diseases, and see that proper disinfection is enforced. They should have power to abate any nuisance detrimental to health.

Typhoid fever and consumption are becoming country diseases because there are no means of enforcing disinfection and sanitation in the country districts and small towns. The people need education on these subjects. They have been kept in the dark too long as to the cause and prevention of disease.

Bulletins containing information on such subjects should be issued by the state boards of health or the state medical societies, and placed in every householder's hands, and the county and district health officers should have the authority to see that these rules are observed, first advisory, compulsory if