WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAILThe Seventh International Congress of Hygiene was held in London from August 10 to 15 of 1891. It is noteworthy for the number and representative character of its members, and also for the wide range of subjects affecting the physical welfare of the race, which were considered. Representatives from America and from Asia, as well as from the various nations of Europe, assembled in the Great Metropolis to consider the vital subject of Health. These learned men met together daily during the week in nine different sections, from ten to two o’clock. They were occupied with the subjects of Architecture, Engineering, Chemistry, the health of soldiers and sailors, the care of early childhood, the duty of the State in relation to the Health of the Nation, Health Statistics, Bacteriology, and the relations of Animal and Human Disease.In the consideration of this wide range of subjects, valuable experience and much useful information were presented in the papers read and in the discussions that followed. But in a Congress not held together by any great guiding principle, wherepersons of various nationalities, moulded by different laws, methods of education, and social customs were represented, a great variety of opinion, of contradictory facts, of imperfect statistics and superficial theories, would necessarily be brought forward. Nevertheless, a remarkable concensus of opinion established one great result of experience—a result which may be considered the striking practical lesson of the Congress—viz., that it is to sanitation that we must look, not only for the prevention of disease, but largely also for its cure.Supremacy of Hygiene.—Taking the results of sectional discussions as a whole, it was very generally shown that, by our increasing knowledge of hygienic law, its wide diffusion amongst the people, and its intelligent application to daily life, we can counteract the evil influence of heredity, get rid of epidemics, improve the stamina of the race, advance in longevity and in the natural enjoyment of our earthly span of life. Thus it is by the advance of sanitation that the Art of Healing can alone become a science of Medicine.A few illustrations will show how this growing result of modern thought was both directly and indirectly supported by the papers and discussions of the various sections.Thus Sir Charles Cameron, of Dublin, showed the beneficial change wrought by ten years’ sanitary effort in the Dublin slums through rebuilding, draining, cleaning, and free disinfecting. Those wretched quarters were a breeding-ground of human miseryin 1871, where small-pox, typhoid fever, and all contagious diseases seemed to be endemic. The annual mortality was reduced in ten years by sanitary measures from 34·11 to 28·80 in the most crowded portions of this wretched quarter; in its less crowded part the mortality had fallen to a much lower figure, notwithstanding the intemperance and destitution which still continued to afflict the inhabitants. In this example it should be especially noted that the goodwill of the people was enlisted, for the municipality laid aside the idea of pecuniary gain on the sum expended in rebuilding, etc., and offered a better lodging at a rent that could be paid, and provided all sanitary appliances free, thus losing, in the sense of money profit, to gain in the far higher value—health.Another remarkable illustration from very large experience was that given by Professor Smith, of Aldershot, who is at the head of the cavalry department of our army. He showed, by most interesting tables, that diseases formally rife amongst horses—glanders, farcy, canker of the foot, etc.—were now practically unknown in the army. This triumphant result was entirely due to careful hygiene, the utmost attention being paid to food, ventilation, drainage of stables, the care of the feet and shoeing, of saddles and harness, and reduction of the burden which the horses were required to carry, to fifteen stone as a fair average. As was justly remarked, there is a limit to the weight that a horse can carry or draw, beyond which is cruelty and injury.Drs. Schrevens and Gibert, from France; Dr. Abbott, of Mass.; Dr. Pagett, of Salford; in discussing diphtheria and typhoid diseases from defective drainage, laid stress upon purity of air and cleanliness of the soil as the chief points for consideration. The same indispensable principle of sanitation was shown in respect to meat and milk used for food. In France 5 per 1,000 of animals used as food are tuberculous, such disease resulting from wrong methods of breeding, feeding, and managing these useful animals.Professor Ralli showed how parasites could be conveyed from animals to men, and dwelt on clean bedding, coverings, suitable food, water, free exercise, as the necessary prophylaxis.Dr. Hime, of Bradford, and Chauveau, of France, dwelt upon terrible diseases, such as the woolsorters’ disease, to which men are exposed who handle the skin, horns, etc., of animals—diseases which are entirely preventable if the manufacturers engaged in such trades would place the health of men above the profit to be gained by trade; thorough ventilation, disinfection, and other sanitary measures would entirely prevent the present reckless destruction of health. The same was true in the large industry of sorting rags imported from abroad, of match-making, etc.It is a noteworthy fact that in the section of the Congress devoted to the relation of diseases of men and animals, which I especially attended, sanitary prophylaxis alone was dwelt upon as the conditionof supreme importance. Inoculation was not advocated by any speaker, except the official representative of the French Pasteur Institute.[2]Compliments were duly paid to M. Pasteur, whose skill and zeal in a false method of research may justly command intellectual recognition. But no one in any case advocated the theory of diffusing mild forms of disease for the purpose of preventing the severe type in the important and practical discussions which took place daily in relation to diseases common to man and the lower animals.Thus a great principle of progress in the prevention of disease and in the attainment of a higher standard of health was directly or indirectly acknowledged by this varied body of men of trained intelligence and large experience—viz., the paramount importance of sanitary knowledge and practice.Obedience to the conditions of healthy growth is the law of progress, from which there is no escape. It is the only way by which disease can be gradually eradicated. Every attempt at evasion inevitably brings its own retribution in various ways, swiftly or slowly, but surely.All medical by-paths leading in a different direction from the conditions of healthy life, however tempting they may appear to active intellectual curiosity, or however desirable it may seem to find a short cut to health, necessarily lead to error if the supreme importance of sanitation be ignored.Now, notwithstanding the large amount of valuable experience brought together in this International Congress, there was one serious omission in the otherwise wide and interesting plan of the Congress—an omission which had a direct practical bearing on the discussions carried on in the various sections. This vitiating lack was the failure to recognise the fundamental connection of mind and body in the phenomena of Life. There was no appointment of any special section which should give prominence to this subject, and thus strike the keynote capable of bringing all the sections into harmony.This omission was the more noteworthy because a sectionwasdevoted to the theories of bacteriology, which, as will be seen, are directly opposed to the true science of Health.Practical success in sanitation is impossible without the recognition of mind, both in the actual working of the organs of the living body and in the knowledge and acceptance by mankind of the conditions which are essential to health.If the human constitution be governed by laws in obedience to which healthy growth is alone possible, then those laws must be carefully sought for before we can build up a science of hygiene. To regard living beings as simply material bodies, without the constant and varying influences of mental action upon the working of those bodies, is an intellectual error which disregards the essential condition of mental harmony in relation to health.It must also be recognised that whatever may be the discoveries of physiological science, they will remain barren unless applied by individuals. In all the concerns of life, whether in the application of principles or in the unconscious formation of habits, we are compelled to deal with the ceaseless power or effect of Will. To treat even the most ignorant adults by arbitrary, unreasoning compulsion is a scientific blunder.[3]The Two Problems of Hygiene.—The two fundamental questions for hygiene to solve are therefore: 1st. What are the conditions of healthy growth? 2nd. How can those conditions be secured?In answering these two fundamental questions the problem of mental action enters into every hygienic section of a Congress, and is the keynote which must be struck if harmony of theory and practice is to be attained.But in consequence of too narrow a view of hygiene these questions were not solved, and this remarkable assembly of learned men, brought together with such careful preparation and hospitable welcome, produced no practical results of the commandingvalue that the public had a right to expect from it.Sanitary legislation was shown to be largely evaded, but the reasons for this unsatisfactory evasion were not examined; the results of experimental research were proved to be strangely contradictory, but the conditions which would harmonize them were not discovered; unproved theories abounded, but the fallacies that vitiated them were not made clear.Disappointment as to the practical utility of the Congress was widely felt both at home and abroad.This disappointment with the results of the Congress has been publicly expressed by our foreign guests. A clever abstract of the work done at this Seventh International Hygienic Congress has been published in Paris by the well-known editors ofThe Review of Hygienic and Sanitary Police. Some noteworthy statements are made in the introduction to this volume which should be seriously considered by all who reverence righteous sanitary science as the foundation of human welfare, but who also know that sanitary science must approve itself to the good sense of a people, or it will be of little practical utility.Failure of English as well as Foreign Sanitation.—This high French authority declares that notwithstanding the efforts for sanitary improvement in which England has set an example for fifty years, the relative mortality of England has not diminished. It is stated: ‘The subject of the mortality of England,although not touched upon in the Congress, was the subject of most private conversation. The real figures of English mortality show a singular coincidence with the mortality of other European countries. It is shown that in none of these countries has the mortality diminished during the last fourteen or fifteen years, except when the birth-rate has diminished, and only in an exact proportion to this birth-rate.’ England has no better record to show in this respect than her Continental neighbours, notwithstanding the increasing demands of her specialists for extended legislative powers. Our French critics remark that ‘English hygienists of to-day are demanding great administrative centralization; their sanitary laws are rigorous to a degree that other countries would consider excessive; local self-government as well as individual liberty is less and less respected, and, from the statements of specialists interested in the subject, there is reason to believe that at no distant date every branch of public hygiene will be entirely administered by the Central Government.’‘It is to be hoped’ (they remark) ‘that English good sense will learn how to avoid the abuse of centralization, for it is just as illogical to wait for the intervention of the Central Government in the sanitation of a parish or the prevention of a local epidemic as to refuse such intervention when public danger arises from negligence or stupidity.’These observations of hygienists, coming from France, a country which we are accustomed to consider (and which in some respects really is) muchmore over-ridden by officialism than England, are extremely valuable. They serve to warn us of the grave danger of depending upon centralized legislation or arbitrary authority withdrawn from popular influence, and from that growth of individual enlightenment which arises through the sense of responsibility.Our friendly foreign critics justly ask: How is it that England, first in the field of sanitary science, with a rigorous system of compulsory legislation, with administration, laws, regulations, agents, and also a gradual development of private hygiene, has still to deplore the unhealthiness of such a large number of towns, quarters, and habitations, and sees no diminution in her annual rate of mortality?They advance towards the root of the matter when they observe in this same report that laws are one thing, their application quite another thing! ‘So true it is that public hygiene depends upon general education as well as on the education of specialists, that no laws or regulations will suffice when the habits of the people generally do not promote their application.’In other words, mind as well as matter must be considered in the subject of sanitation.The student of science who has learned the great principle of creative Unity knows that no manifestation of existence can be absolutely separated from the rest of creation. As we investigate phenomena it is seen that the laws governing separate phenomenabecome more comprehensive as knowledge increases, because more widely embracing separate facts; varieties are seen to be linked together by relationships, and apparently different phenomena can be transmuted into one greater force.In the plan of an International Congress, designed to gather together the advanced knowledge of many nations on the whole science of health, the omission of any section which should bring into prominence this powerful fact in life—the influence of mind on body—is a very grave defect. It is an error which affects both the investigation of facts and the application of results, the two indispensable factors to the progress of sanitation. Their neglect in an International Congress on Health was the more unfortunate because mental influence is a fact which is forcing itself upon the attention of investigators with increasing urgency.Increasing Importance of the Mental Problem.—Under the modern title of hypnotism facts of the most remarkable character are now acknowledged and studied. The cure of disease by suggestion, carefully and humanely applied, has been proved beyond the possibility of rational denial. The reality and practical effects of mental epidemics is a positive fact. The effect of fear in predisposing to cholera, hydrophobia, and other diseases cannot be denied.[4]The contagion of religious enthusiasm or religious fanaticism are facts; whether the effects are seen in the devotion of the Salvation Army, or in pilgrimages to Lourdes or Trèves with their so-called miracles of faith-healing, they are equally facts requiring consideration. Wild business speculations in the craze for riches become contagious, and lure multitudes to ruin.The history of past and present medical delusions is also most instructive. We need not go to the Sangrados of a past generation, who treated every disease by blood-letting, or the search for the elixir of life in illustration; the contagion of false hopes in relation to consumption, which upset the judgment of two hemispheres, cannot yet be forgotten. Thoughtful physicians possess abundant warning against being carried away by new theories which violate the moral sense or the Law of Unity, even when such theories are supported by distinguished names.Experience proves the potent character of mental stimuli in moulding practical action. Fear or hope, curiosity, vanity, cupidity, when regardless of the Law of Unity, seize upon isolated phenomena removed from their natural connection, and distort them by creating morbid conditions, thus viewing facts out of proportion. Statistics thus formedbecome fallacious, and serve as the bases of dangerous theories—theories which, unless checked by popular common-sense from being put into practice, would cause the moral and physical degradation of the race. I need only refer to the folly of injustice embodied in certain medical acts lately abolished and to the present theory of inoculation, as noteworthy instances of dangerous mental delusion desiring to shape itself into action.Materialism, which is blind to other than sensuous life, which insists upon reducing every phenomenon to the limits of the senses, which refuses to be enlightened by any higher reality, or sneers at the term ‘vitality,’ neglects a great range of positive facts, and has no right to the noble name of science. Reflection, therefore, shows that the moulding and guiding power of mental action in shaping physical results being a fact of the most far-reaching character and of permanent operation in sentient creation, its omission in a Congress of Health was a serious injury to the results of the Congress. It was a sufficient reason for that sterility of result which has been publicly and privately expressed.The error of not recognising mental as well as physical forces, or the Law of Unity, in relation to health, and the tyranny that may result from such imperfect method in the study and application of sanitation and medicine, may be illustrated by an interesting incident of the Congress.An important joint meeting of two sections took place in order to listen to the discourse of one of ourablest investigators—a man in high position, and one who wields a powerful influence on the rising generation of medical students. This gentleman early in his discourse made the following noteworthy announcement: ‘I claim the right of science to dictate’—and as if to strengthen this claim by the authority of our French brethren he added ‘conformément à la logique’—‘I claim the right of science to dictate in accordance with logic.’The bold demand for absolute obedience thus authoritatively made by a professor at the head of biological research demands careful consideration. It is the announcement of a new priesthood or esoteric sect of physical science. In the mind of the speaker it means that his science is identical with truth. If that be admitted, it is the highest wisdom of the human being to obey gladly and unhesitatingly, and the teacher thus inspired with truth rightfully commands our grateful and profound reverence. But this claim may also mean the unconscious arrogance of a mind taking too narrow a view of science—a mind which, whilst earnest and laborious in investigating partial phenomena, is intoxicated by the discovery of new facts with the theories which can be built upon them, and at once announces himself as one of the priests of a new religion demanding absolute obedience; for the temptation of all priesthoods is to form an esoteric sect.In this second case it is the bounden duty of every truthful mind to refuse obedience. For untilthe claim is fully examined in all its aspects, in both its physical and mental relations, and sustained by the deliberate and hearty assent of all intelligent minds and the instinctive accord of the people generally, this demand for absolute obedience to the theories of so-called science must be resolutely withstood as a reintroduction of mischievous and degrading superstition.The special occasion which led to this unfortunate claim for dictation, or the compulsory regulation of disease by specialists, was the subject of tuberculosis and the exaggerated claim of the modern bacteriologist that the tubercle bacillus is the sole primary cause of consumption, with the logical claim that, as only the thoroughly-trained specialist can detect this bacillus, consumption should be scheduled as a contagious disease, and subjected to the rigorous regulations of the specialist and his board of advisers.As our largest item in annual mortality is death from tuberculosis—about 14 per cent. with us—and as food and airmayintroduce a bacillus into the system, we can dimly imagine the extent to which the claim for dictation may grow in ‘accordance with logic.’Many striking instances of crude official tyranny were revealed by our Canadian and other foreign delegates. Thus, railway passengers from Montreal to Ontario were compulsorily revaccinated on the train before being allowed to enter Ontario.[5]Thefoolish and fallacious system of attempting toregulatespecial vice was seen to prevail largely in the inexperienced civilizations of Canada and Western United States.Scientific Inquisitors.—I will here quote a late statement of Professor Huxley’s, which might well be emblazoned in all our medical schools. He says: ‘We are at the beginning of our knowledge instead of at the end of it; the limitation of our faculties is such that we never can set bounds to the possibilities of nature. The verdict may be always more or less wrong, the best information being never complete, and the best reasoning liable to fallacy.‘The greatest mistake those who are interested in free thought can make is to overlook these limitations and deck themselves with the dogmatic feathers which are the traditional adornments of opponents.’This vigorous protest of our English naturalist against the dictation of so-called science is in striking accord with the observations of our French visitors in relation to the futility of compulsory legislation now urged by scientific specialists.What is Science?—When the investigators in any limited branch of knowledge glibly use the term ‘science’ to compel assent or to enforce legislation, we are forced to ask, Whatistrue science or certain knowledge grounded on demonstration, as distinguished from false science, which is uncertainknowledge, based upon varying and imperfectly observed phenomena or upon theory? Knowledge is of various kinds: Mental, Physical, Mathematical. These separate departments of knowledge rest equally on bases of fact. Love is as much a fact as bread-and-butter; justice is as potent in its effects as microbes; and from their wider range of action and more permanent duration these mental facts are far morerealthan the physical phenomena.In determining the claim of science to obedience the great Law of Unity gives the guiding principle, which, however humbling to human arrogance, or however affirmative of the limitations of our intellect, the truly scientific mind is bound to accept.The Law of Unity the Foundation of Science.—The Law of Unity teaches us that no explanation of any fact is final or ‘true’ if it contradicts other facts. It announces that no method of examining facts is reliable that destroys other facts equally patent, and that any results deducible from partial phenomena, however interesting or even apparently useful, can only be regarded from the point of view of true science as temporary expedients. They may possibly be recommendations for useful trial, but they can never be justified as subjects for dictation.The confusion of thought which has brought the unnatural practices of inoculation into fashion may be usefully illustrated by dwelling on the mingling of truth and error which exists in relation to vaccination. Vaccination must not be confounded withinoculation, although the word ‘vaccination’ is now incorrectly used by bacteriologists to cover up the alarming practice of injecting the diluted virus of any particular disease, which is inoculation. Vaccination, on the other hand, is solely the injection of matter derived from a disease in the vacca, which disease is neither small-pox nor derived from small-pox, and vaccinia in a healthy cow is a mild disease.During a lifetime of medical practice I have vaccinated children (sharing the widespread belief that it was preventive of small-pox). The practice, however, has always seemed to be an unsatisfactory method, which I hoped increased knowledge of sanitation would enable us to improve.I also recognised the powerful influence of fear in predisposing to disease, and I regarded vaccination as a sedative for the family or community. My faith in the innocence of this practice was, however, rudely shaken by the lamentable death, in my own practice, of a scrofulous infant—a death clearly caused by the phagedenic ulceration produced by the vaccination. I also noted the accumulating evidence of very serious diseases communicated by so-called vaccine lymph.Vaccination not Scientific.—But Professor Crookshank, in his exhaustive work lately published on vaccination, has conclusively proved the unscientific character of the evidence on which this practice is based, our ignorance of the sources of the virus commonly used and its mode of action, and also theuncertainty of its prophylactic power.[6]That the generally mild disorder of vaccination, although arbitrarily and even tyrannically enforced on every child born in our country, does not prove the prevention of small-pox which it is claimed to be, is shown by the recurrence of epidemics of small-pox amongst us, by the occurrence of the disease in vaccinated persons, and also by the demand now made by the French Academy of Medicine (which recognises the failure of our system of vaccination) for legislative powers to compel repeated revaccination. This demand for power of indefinite revaccination is a logical demand. For, proceeding on the assumed premiss that vaccination prevents small-pox, but being met by the inexorable fact that epidemics of small-poxdooccur and spread amongst vaccinated people, the cause of this contradiction is assumed to be that the supposed preventive power of vaccination has been thrown out of the system, and must therefore be again renewed. Logically, therefore, not only the infant must be subjected, but the child, the adolescent, and the adult. All must be compulsorily revaccinated, as the human system undergoes a change at each of those periods of growth.The history of the struggle against compulsion in vaccination is very interesting, as a strong condemnation of that arrogance of false science which presumes to trample on human rights whilstneglecting hygienic conditions. As all intelligent persons should be able to form a practical judgment on the important question at issue, I should like to dwell a moment on the subject of immunity, a fact (though now misapplied) on which compulsory vaccination is based.Immunity.—Observation has long shown us that when the human system is gradually exposed to injurious influences, a certain tolerance of those influences may be acquired, which often enables those exposed to them to escape immediate death, although with impaired health, whilst healthy persons suddenly exposed to the same injurious influences die. This is a well-known fact, capable of abundant verification. Thus, persons long resident in a badly-drained house, although frequently ailing in various ways, may never be laid up with typhoid fever; a certain immunity has been obtained by the slow adaptation of the system to bad air, but at the sacrifice of vigorous health. But if a new and healthy family move into the same house a deadly outbreak of typhoid or diphtheria may at once result.In the malarious districts of the United States a large scattered population of what are called by the negroes ‘mean whites’ continue to live, with clay-coloured faces, enlarged spleens, and impaired vitality, yet for a stranger to sleep in those regions is deadly. The strong tendency to live, which we call vitality, though it has enabled those born and brought up under injurious influences to struggle on through life, does not prove equal to resistance in many constitutionssuddenly exposed to the injurious influences. The medical statistics of our army in India show that the newly-arrived is far more apt to suffer from enteric fever than one who has been long in the country.‘The percentage of deaths from this cause is nearly fivefold greater in the first or second year of service than from the sixth to the tenth year. Medical officers are unable to trace out in any given instance a definite insanitary condition to which with certainty the outbreak can be attributed.’There is, therefore, fact for theory to be built on—viz., the possible adaptation of the human constitution to injurious influences, an adaptation which, whilst impairing general vigour, often produces immunity from rapid death.This fact, confirmed in the mind of the bacteriologist by the fallacious system of diseasing animals as ‘témoins’ or ‘controls,’ has given rise to the dangerous theory that all contagious diseases may be forestalled in their most deadly form by the inoculation of human beings with diluted virus produced by those diseases. This dangerous belief has been widely fostered by the unfortunate educational influence of the law of compulsory vaccination. But it must be observed that vaccination, unlike inoculation, does not introduce any products of the special disease—small-pox—into the system. The vaccine disease in the cow is not small-pox, nor can it ever be made to produce small-pox. The preservative power which is claimed for it, therefore, has not the dangers which are attached to inoculation, butneither can it claim the occasional immunity which may attend that dangerous practice of introducing small-pox virus into the blood. Pure air, cleanliness, and decent house-room secured to all our people, form the true prophylaxis of small-pox.Exaggeration of Bacteriology.—We observe how neglect of the Law of Unity is misleading the intellect in relation to bacteriology. This subject, useful if pursued without cruelty and in subordination to higher facts, has become a mischievous exaggeration[7]both as to what it signifies and as to what it may lead to.The majority of our active and intelligent medical investigators are now intensely engaged in the search for a microbe as the primarycauseof every disease known to humanity. Cancer, leprosy, fevers, hydrophobia, diphtheria, tetanus, insanity, etc., are being largely studied by this imperfect method, in hope of finding a characteristic microbe which can be pronounced the essential cause of the disease. The great mental energy of biological investigators is diverted from sanitary investigation to the search for fresh bacilli. Admirable perseverance, acute ingenuity, unwearied energy are devoted to this search.Advantage has been taken of the helplessness ofthe lower animals to carry on a system of experimentation upon them, the extent and ruthlessness of which has never before been attempted. Disease is studiously propagated. Myriads of healthy living creatures are filled with loathsome disease in order to furnish ‘material’ for experimentation. So many kilos of dog or rabbit (used for injecting disease, or noted as more or less slowly resisting the death thus gradually inflicted) is a common expression now used in experimentation, and supposed to give ‘scientific accuracy’ to experiments. It is a pitiful intellectual fallacy of short-sighted materialism that supposes it possible to obtain ‘scientific accuracy’ by regarding so many kilos of living dog as if they could be experimented on as so many kilos of dead matter, or as if they were the materials of a steam-engine, which can be taken apart, examined, cleaned, tested, and put together again in complete working order.This diversion of intellectual ability from the true path of sanitation by an exaggerated search for bacilli leads directly to the dangerous practice of inoculation, which threatens the future deterioration of the human race. As one of the most distinguished of our hygienists, the late Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson, has pronounced, ‘inoculation is bad sanitation.’[8]Sanitary law teaches us that disease is produced by many causes, not solely by a specific microbe.These causes are insanitary conditions, which impair or destroy the agents required by our human constitution for its healthy growth, and which act with varying force according to individual tendency. These insanitary conditions, in the course of their operation upon varying individual constitutions, produce various forms of disease, as chill may produce rheumatism, bronchitis, or diarrhœa, according to idiosyncrasy. These varying idiosyncrasies of individuals, both in their physical and mental aspects, as well as the varying action of vital force in different classes of animals, will always vitiate the theories of materialistic investigators. Thus the same poison will not destroy all classes of living creatures. A healthy young dog has been known to resist for months strenuous efforts made to disease him in a particular way. The same disease germs produce quite different forms of disturbance in men and in rabbits.‘We possess no clue to the immunity of certain animals from poison. Rabbits fed on belladonna show no signs of injury, although their flesh becomes poisonous to those who eat it. Pigeons and other herbivora may be safe from what will cause paralysis and asphyxia in other animals. The meat of goats may similarly become poisonous.‘Chickens, cats, birds, rodents, are variously affected by poisons, some thriving on what will kill other animals. The whole cat tribe is said to be always proof against morphia.’Drs. Hahn and von Bergmann, in attempting to justify their cancer-grafting experiments on hospital patients, affirm that ‘it was necessary to select human beings for experiment, inasmuch as none of the lower animals would have been suitable for their purpose.’Sanitary law teaches us that unhealthy conditions vitiate the living micro-organisms with which we are surrounded, and which, naturally beneficial, may become, through violation of natural law, morbid germs, capable of spreading their various forms of disease amongst persons predisposed to such disease. Thus, according to sanitary law, the violated health conditions (vitiating naturally innocuous particles) are the primary cause of disease; the morbid germ or bacillus is only the secondary cause.The new bacteriological theory directly contradicts this important law of sanitary experience, and in opposition to it authoritatively announces that contagious or infectious disease can never be produced without the antecedent microbe. It was in defence of this untenable theory that the distinguished professor claimed the ‘right of science to dictate.’The great mistake, therefore, made by the Hygienic Congress was the neglect of mind as an indispensable and prominent factor in Health, and the exaltation of bacteriology, with the theories based upon it, into the chief point of interest and importance.The modern exaggeration of bacteriology, with its theory of inoculation, must be steadily opposed by all who realize the power and growing influence ofspiritual life. The injurious results of this exaggeration may be summarized as follows:The Practical Dangers arising from erroneous Scientific Method.—1. It diverts invaluable intellectual activity into methods of comparatively futile investigation. These investigations lead very widely to the exercise of fraud and cruelty upon the lower animals, and tend to reckless experiment on the poor. They waste much time and spread the contagion of intellectual error amongst the students of all our medical schools, where the false practices of experimentation are increasingly carried on. They also pervert the moral sense of the great army of assistants, caretakers, porters, nurses, and others connected with our medical institutions, who become aware of the cruel practices which so largely accompany this method of research.2. This perversion of medical activity misleads our Parliamentary representatives, who are bewildered by pseudo-science authoritatively announcing itself as Truth, and permits a rapid increase of officialism to crush opposition and force the dicta of superficial ‘science’ upon the protesting conscience of intelligent people. It also misleads the community by fallacious articles in popular magazines, in which facts, theories, statistics, and assertions, often incorrect, are given with an imposing air of science, in relation to which the ordinary reader is quite unable to discriminate the true from the false.3. The diversion of medical activity from thetrue path of Preventive Medicine not only hinders the progress of sanitation, but is producing an increasing revolt of common-sense and popular feeling against what are erroneously supposed to be the necessary methods of medicine and the practice of dispensary and hospital. This growing feeling in the community increases the dread with which the poor generally regard the hospital, and it also seriously diminishes the pecuniary support which the well-to-do would otherwise gladly extend to their sick and suffering fellow-creatures.Conclusion.—In considering the foregoing record of facts it is seen to be a fundamental error, not only in a Hygienic Congress, but inallmedical thought and practice, to look only at the body, and not consider those spiritual facts which precede, animate, and succeed the flesh. It is also certain that in the application of hygiene to daily life we may as well pour water into a sieve as hope to enforce permanently practical hygienic measures without enlisting the goodwill of the people in their observance.As the solution of the two great problems of hygiene—viz., ‘What are the laws and conditions of healthy growth?’ and ‘How can these conditions be secured?’ rests upon principles of spiritual truth, those principles are of fundamental importance in directing human intelligence into right lines of investigation. Being compelled to use the imperfect symbolism of language, we speak of mind and matter,of spiritualism and materialism, as if they were separate or contradictory entities. But this is a limitation in the expression of thought to be recognised and carefully guarded against in thought itself. There can be no real contradiction between Religion and Science; they are only varying manifestations in human thought of Truth, which is essentially one. Our effort must be to unite these manifestations in thought, and thus gain the only safe guidance possible to us for practical action.The great fundamental principle of our human constitution is incarnation—i.e., spirit shaping form—the Universal manifesting itself in the phenomenal. This principle is the foundation of sanitary science. It forms the basis of the Moral Law which must be the guide of science.When this principle is understood and applied, it enlarges the intellect and enlightens the conscience. It transforms the narrow, self-centred or arrogant individual into the humble inquirer and sharer of the larger Diviner life.This universalization of the individual resides essentially in the Will of man, and is the foundation of conscience—conscience which, gradually enlarged by the growing intellect, is the great guide of the human race in its struggle upwards.This universalization of the primitive self-centred life leads to the realization of Sin. When we enter that Garden of Gethsemane where the woes of the world, the murders and seductions, the cruelties andhypocrisies, are revealed in all their hideousness, we realize that we are partakers in this Sin; for it is the result of that self-centred arrogance, that selfishness with which each one has to fight, and which is the essence of Sin. It is through this tremendous conviction that all must enter into that life of the Universal, where alone is true freedom, and where alone the fulness of individual life is to be found. Only by this saturation with the Universal does that hatred of Sin arise which makes sins henceforth impossible.Then the recognition of Right and Wrong in human action becomes clear, and the supremacy of the Moral Law inevitable.It is indispensable to refer to these deeper principles of existence in considering their varied application. They give force to those condensed maxims of practical wisdom which, transmitted to us from the experience of our forefathers, are guides for our present daily life.‘Never do evil that good may come’ is a proverb so familiar to us in various forms that we fail to see the profound wisdom which it expresses.It is a confession of that intellectual limitation which cannot foresee complicated results; it is an acceptance of that inflowing light of conscience (however dim) by which everyone must honestly walk; it is the subjection of the narrow, self-centred Will to the Universal Life by which the individual becomes a free co-worker with the Divine.Physiology rightly studied in the light of thisfundamental principle—incarnation—vindicates the supremacy of the Moral Law, which is the Law of Unity, or transfiguration of the Self. It gives the perception of Right and Wrong. The Law of the Universal, reverently and intelligently studied, will guide all practical action; it will show us how to build a hospital, plan a medical school, organize an institute of preventive medicine, legislate for a community, or guide the individual life.The Law of Unity relegates bacteriology to its proper place as a branch of pathology, and proves that truth cannot be gained by searching into the quivering organs of tortured animals. It shows us also that individual health cannot be secured by building a Chinese wall around one’s self. We cannot stop the revolution of the earth in an atmosphere which may bring bacilli from inundated China, from starved Russia, from leprous India, or from the slums of the West.We must work gradually towards the realization of our ideal—Health—and work in many directions and on many lines. Advancing sanitation will place our future hospitals in country neighbourhoods, with only temporary receiving houses and dispensaries in large towns.‘The oldest hospitals were the temples of Esculapius, where Divine assistance was sought.’ To these Asclepeia, always erected on healthy sites, hard-by fresh springs and surrounded by shady groves, the sick and maimed resorted to seek the aid of the ‘god of Health.’ To this wisdom of the ancients we mustcertainly return when the present tendency to subordinate the welfare of the sick to the convenience of students be checked.The most urgent need which now exists in our profession is the establishment of an Institute of Preventive Medicine guided by the Moral Law. Such an Institute will recognise that mind and matter meet in the fact called Life, will reverently study all the conditions and laws of healthy life, and not be diverted from this great aim by curious investigations into artificially propagated disease.The study of the biological sciences, comparative and human physiology, morphology, histology, electro-chemical action, etc., is most important and necessary for the advancement of medical science; but these can be studied without any violation of the moral Law of Unity. It is necessary to study the forms and functions of life which are manifested in organisms lower than man. The laws which govern animal and vegetable growth form important steps towards our increasing knowledge of human physiology and sanitary law; but these can only yield true and available facts when studied through the natural and healthy working of the objects of study. The artificial production of mental or physical disease by fear and suffering vitiates the natural order of life, and leads to error in observation and induction from such observation. Torture is not only unsuited to laboratory work, but is an inevitable source of error in results. A laboratory or workroom should never be degraded into a torture-chamber.Experiment should never degenerate into curiosity or inhumanity.[9]In the future a wise Institute of Preventive Medicine may possibly be placed in the healthy country. Around such an Institute for wise research a well-planned health colony could grow up, which would be of enormous utility to the overworked brains of our most valuable people. It would be a health centre where the weary brain could be refreshed and its vigour renewed by the restorative effects of manual labour. Guided by true science, it would teach our teachers and our legislators. Here they might learn to reverence those laws of health which are equally violated by overworked brains and overworked muscles. An Institute of Preventive Medicine genuinely ‘scientific’ would be the soul of such a health centre.But such a colony can only be created when narrow selfhood has been transfigured by the universal life; for, as has been finely said: ‘True social integration will follow upon spiritual integration, and upon nothing else.’Whilst working towards a fuller realization of our ideal we must respect and aid, as far as we can, those isolated efforts to deal with special transgressions of the Moral Law which are really steps onward in thegrowth of humanity. Separate efforts to advance temperance and purity, justice to women and children, to the poor and weak, to the humbler animals, our fellow-creatures, are all efforts to be heartily encouraged. Each effort forms a little step out of selfishness into large religious life. Although those who realize the Law of Unity cannot rest in any isolated work, yet it is by the honest fighting of sins that we grow into that hatred of Sin which will lead to its destruction; and by the slow perception of truths we gradually approach that ineffable Light of Truth which will melt away the chains of selfhood, and set us free in the larger liberty of the Universal Life.
WHY HYGIENIC CONGRESSES FAIL
The Seventh International Congress of Hygiene was held in London from August 10 to 15 of 1891. It is noteworthy for the number and representative character of its members, and also for the wide range of subjects affecting the physical welfare of the race, which were considered. Representatives from America and from Asia, as well as from the various nations of Europe, assembled in the Great Metropolis to consider the vital subject of Health. These learned men met together daily during the week in nine different sections, from ten to two o’clock. They were occupied with the subjects of Architecture, Engineering, Chemistry, the health of soldiers and sailors, the care of early childhood, the duty of the State in relation to the Health of the Nation, Health Statistics, Bacteriology, and the relations of Animal and Human Disease.
In the consideration of this wide range of subjects, valuable experience and much useful information were presented in the papers read and in the discussions that followed. But in a Congress not held together by any great guiding principle, wherepersons of various nationalities, moulded by different laws, methods of education, and social customs were represented, a great variety of opinion, of contradictory facts, of imperfect statistics and superficial theories, would necessarily be brought forward. Nevertheless, a remarkable concensus of opinion established one great result of experience—a result which may be considered the striking practical lesson of the Congress—viz., that it is to sanitation that we must look, not only for the prevention of disease, but largely also for its cure.
Supremacy of Hygiene.—Taking the results of sectional discussions as a whole, it was very generally shown that, by our increasing knowledge of hygienic law, its wide diffusion amongst the people, and its intelligent application to daily life, we can counteract the evil influence of heredity, get rid of epidemics, improve the stamina of the race, advance in longevity and in the natural enjoyment of our earthly span of life. Thus it is by the advance of sanitation that the Art of Healing can alone become a science of Medicine.
A few illustrations will show how this growing result of modern thought was both directly and indirectly supported by the papers and discussions of the various sections.
Thus Sir Charles Cameron, of Dublin, showed the beneficial change wrought by ten years’ sanitary effort in the Dublin slums through rebuilding, draining, cleaning, and free disinfecting. Those wretched quarters were a breeding-ground of human miseryin 1871, where small-pox, typhoid fever, and all contagious diseases seemed to be endemic. The annual mortality was reduced in ten years by sanitary measures from 34·11 to 28·80 in the most crowded portions of this wretched quarter; in its less crowded part the mortality had fallen to a much lower figure, notwithstanding the intemperance and destitution which still continued to afflict the inhabitants. In this example it should be especially noted that the goodwill of the people was enlisted, for the municipality laid aside the idea of pecuniary gain on the sum expended in rebuilding, etc., and offered a better lodging at a rent that could be paid, and provided all sanitary appliances free, thus losing, in the sense of money profit, to gain in the far higher value—health.
Another remarkable illustration from very large experience was that given by Professor Smith, of Aldershot, who is at the head of the cavalry department of our army. He showed, by most interesting tables, that diseases formally rife amongst horses—glanders, farcy, canker of the foot, etc.—were now practically unknown in the army. This triumphant result was entirely due to careful hygiene, the utmost attention being paid to food, ventilation, drainage of stables, the care of the feet and shoeing, of saddles and harness, and reduction of the burden which the horses were required to carry, to fifteen stone as a fair average. As was justly remarked, there is a limit to the weight that a horse can carry or draw, beyond which is cruelty and injury.
Drs. Schrevens and Gibert, from France; Dr. Abbott, of Mass.; Dr. Pagett, of Salford; in discussing diphtheria and typhoid diseases from defective drainage, laid stress upon purity of air and cleanliness of the soil as the chief points for consideration. The same indispensable principle of sanitation was shown in respect to meat and milk used for food. In France 5 per 1,000 of animals used as food are tuberculous, such disease resulting from wrong methods of breeding, feeding, and managing these useful animals.
Professor Ralli showed how parasites could be conveyed from animals to men, and dwelt on clean bedding, coverings, suitable food, water, free exercise, as the necessary prophylaxis.
Dr. Hime, of Bradford, and Chauveau, of France, dwelt upon terrible diseases, such as the woolsorters’ disease, to which men are exposed who handle the skin, horns, etc., of animals—diseases which are entirely preventable if the manufacturers engaged in such trades would place the health of men above the profit to be gained by trade; thorough ventilation, disinfection, and other sanitary measures would entirely prevent the present reckless destruction of health. The same was true in the large industry of sorting rags imported from abroad, of match-making, etc.
It is a noteworthy fact that in the section of the Congress devoted to the relation of diseases of men and animals, which I especially attended, sanitary prophylaxis alone was dwelt upon as the conditionof supreme importance. Inoculation was not advocated by any speaker, except the official representative of the French Pasteur Institute.[2]
Compliments were duly paid to M. Pasteur, whose skill and zeal in a false method of research may justly command intellectual recognition. But no one in any case advocated the theory of diffusing mild forms of disease for the purpose of preventing the severe type in the important and practical discussions which took place daily in relation to diseases common to man and the lower animals.
Thus a great principle of progress in the prevention of disease and in the attainment of a higher standard of health was directly or indirectly acknowledged by this varied body of men of trained intelligence and large experience—viz., the paramount importance of sanitary knowledge and practice.
Obedience to the conditions of healthy growth is the law of progress, from which there is no escape. It is the only way by which disease can be gradually eradicated. Every attempt at evasion inevitably brings its own retribution in various ways, swiftly or slowly, but surely.
All medical by-paths leading in a different direction from the conditions of healthy life, however tempting they may appear to active intellectual curiosity, or however desirable it may seem to find a short cut to health, necessarily lead to error if the supreme importance of sanitation be ignored.
Now, notwithstanding the large amount of valuable experience brought together in this International Congress, there was one serious omission in the otherwise wide and interesting plan of the Congress—an omission which had a direct practical bearing on the discussions carried on in the various sections. This vitiating lack was the failure to recognise the fundamental connection of mind and body in the phenomena of Life. There was no appointment of any special section which should give prominence to this subject, and thus strike the keynote capable of bringing all the sections into harmony.
This omission was the more noteworthy because a sectionwasdevoted to the theories of bacteriology, which, as will be seen, are directly opposed to the true science of Health.
Practical success in sanitation is impossible without the recognition of mind, both in the actual working of the organs of the living body and in the knowledge and acceptance by mankind of the conditions which are essential to health.
If the human constitution be governed by laws in obedience to which healthy growth is alone possible, then those laws must be carefully sought for before we can build up a science of hygiene. To regard living beings as simply material bodies, without the constant and varying influences of mental action upon the working of those bodies, is an intellectual error which disregards the essential condition of mental harmony in relation to health.
It must also be recognised that whatever may be the discoveries of physiological science, they will remain barren unless applied by individuals. In all the concerns of life, whether in the application of principles or in the unconscious formation of habits, we are compelled to deal with the ceaseless power or effect of Will. To treat even the most ignorant adults by arbitrary, unreasoning compulsion is a scientific blunder.[3]
The Two Problems of Hygiene.—The two fundamental questions for hygiene to solve are therefore: 1st. What are the conditions of healthy growth? 2nd. How can those conditions be secured?
In answering these two fundamental questions the problem of mental action enters into every hygienic section of a Congress, and is the keynote which must be struck if harmony of theory and practice is to be attained.
But in consequence of too narrow a view of hygiene these questions were not solved, and this remarkable assembly of learned men, brought together with such careful preparation and hospitable welcome, produced no practical results of the commandingvalue that the public had a right to expect from it.
Sanitary legislation was shown to be largely evaded, but the reasons for this unsatisfactory evasion were not examined; the results of experimental research were proved to be strangely contradictory, but the conditions which would harmonize them were not discovered; unproved theories abounded, but the fallacies that vitiated them were not made clear.
Disappointment as to the practical utility of the Congress was widely felt both at home and abroad.
This disappointment with the results of the Congress has been publicly expressed by our foreign guests. A clever abstract of the work done at this Seventh International Hygienic Congress has been published in Paris by the well-known editors ofThe Review of Hygienic and Sanitary Police. Some noteworthy statements are made in the introduction to this volume which should be seriously considered by all who reverence righteous sanitary science as the foundation of human welfare, but who also know that sanitary science must approve itself to the good sense of a people, or it will be of little practical utility.
Failure of English as well as Foreign Sanitation.—This high French authority declares that notwithstanding the efforts for sanitary improvement in which England has set an example for fifty years, the relative mortality of England has not diminished. It is stated: ‘The subject of the mortality of England,although not touched upon in the Congress, was the subject of most private conversation. The real figures of English mortality show a singular coincidence with the mortality of other European countries. It is shown that in none of these countries has the mortality diminished during the last fourteen or fifteen years, except when the birth-rate has diminished, and only in an exact proportion to this birth-rate.’ England has no better record to show in this respect than her Continental neighbours, notwithstanding the increasing demands of her specialists for extended legislative powers. Our French critics remark that ‘English hygienists of to-day are demanding great administrative centralization; their sanitary laws are rigorous to a degree that other countries would consider excessive; local self-government as well as individual liberty is less and less respected, and, from the statements of specialists interested in the subject, there is reason to believe that at no distant date every branch of public hygiene will be entirely administered by the Central Government.’
‘It is to be hoped’ (they remark) ‘that English good sense will learn how to avoid the abuse of centralization, for it is just as illogical to wait for the intervention of the Central Government in the sanitation of a parish or the prevention of a local epidemic as to refuse such intervention when public danger arises from negligence or stupidity.’
These observations of hygienists, coming from France, a country which we are accustomed to consider (and which in some respects really is) muchmore over-ridden by officialism than England, are extremely valuable. They serve to warn us of the grave danger of depending upon centralized legislation or arbitrary authority withdrawn from popular influence, and from that growth of individual enlightenment which arises through the sense of responsibility.
Our friendly foreign critics justly ask: How is it that England, first in the field of sanitary science, with a rigorous system of compulsory legislation, with administration, laws, regulations, agents, and also a gradual development of private hygiene, has still to deplore the unhealthiness of such a large number of towns, quarters, and habitations, and sees no diminution in her annual rate of mortality?
They advance towards the root of the matter when they observe in this same report that laws are one thing, their application quite another thing! ‘So true it is that public hygiene depends upon general education as well as on the education of specialists, that no laws or regulations will suffice when the habits of the people generally do not promote their application.’
In other words, mind as well as matter must be considered in the subject of sanitation.
The student of science who has learned the great principle of creative Unity knows that no manifestation of existence can be absolutely separated from the rest of creation. As we investigate phenomena it is seen that the laws governing separate phenomenabecome more comprehensive as knowledge increases, because more widely embracing separate facts; varieties are seen to be linked together by relationships, and apparently different phenomena can be transmuted into one greater force.
In the plan of an International Congress, designed to gather together the advanced knowledge of many nations on the whole science of health, the omission of any section which should bring into prominence this powerful fact in life—the influence of mind on body—is a very grave defect. It is an error which affects both the investigation of facts and the application of results, the two indispensable factors to the progress of sanitation. Their neglect in an International Congress on Health was the more unfortunate because mental influence is a fact which is forcing itself upon the attention of investigators with increasing urgency.
Increasing Importance of the Mental Problem.—Under the modern title of hypnotism facts of the most remarkable character are now acknowledged and studied. The cure of disease by suggestion, carefully and humanely applied, has been proved beyond the possibility of rational denial. The reality and practical effects of mental epidemics is a positive fact. The effect of fear in predisposing to cholera, hydrophobia, and other diseases cannot be denied.[4]
The contagion of religious enthusiasm or religious fanaticism are facts; whether the effects are seen in the devotion of the Salvation Army, or in pilgrimages to Lourdes or Trèves with their so-called miracles of faith-healing, they are equally facts requiring consideration. Wild business speculations in the craze for riches become contagious, and lure multitudes to ruin.
The history of past and present medical delusions is also most instructive. We need not go to the Sangrados of a past generation, who treated every disease by blood-letting, or the search for the elixir of life in illustration; the contagion of false hopes in relation to consumption, which upset the judgment of two hemispheres, cannot yet be forgotten. Thoughtful physicians possess abundant warning against being carried away by new theories which violate the moral sense or the Law of Unity, even when such theories are supported by distinguished names.
Experience proves the potent character of mental stimuli in moulding practical action. Fear or hope, curiosity, vanity, cupidity, when regardless of the Law of Unity, seize upon isolated phenomena removed from their natural connection, and distort them by creating morbid conditions, thus viewing facts out of proportion. Statistics thus formedbecome fallacious, and serve as the bases of dangerous theories—theories which, unless checked by popular common-sense from being put into practice, would cause the moral and physical degradation of the race. I need only refer to the folly of injustice embodied in certain medical acts lately abolished and to the present theory of inoculation, as noteworthy instances of dangerous mental delusion desiring to shape itself into action.
Materialism, which is blind to other than sensuous life, which insists upon reducing every phenomenon to the limits of the senses, which refuses to be enlightened by any higher reality, or sneers at the term ‘vitality,’ neglects a great range of positive facts, and has no right to the noble name of science. Reflection, therefore, shows that the moulding and guiding power of mental action in shaping physical results being a fact of the most far-reaching character and of permanent operation in sentient creation, its omission in a Congress of Health was a serious injury to the results of the Congress. It was a sufficient reason for that sterility of result which has been publicly and privately expressed.
The error of not recognising mental as well as physical forces, or the Law of Unity, in relation to health, and the tyranny that may result from such imperfect method in the study and application of sanitation and medicine, may be illustrated by an interesting incident of the Congress.
An important joint meeting of two sections took place in order to listen to the discourse of one of ourablest investigators—a man in high position, and one who wields a powerful influence on the rising generation of medical students. This gentleman early in his discourse made the following noteworthy announcement: ‘I claim the right of science to dictate’—and as if to strengthen this claim by the authority of our French brethren he added ‘conformément à la logique’—‘I claim the right of science to dictate in accordance with logic.’
The bold demand for absolute obedience thus authoritatively made by a professor at the head of biological research demands careful consideration. It is the announcement of a new priesthood or esoteric sect of physical science. In the mind of the speaker it means that his science is identical with truth. If that be admitted, it is the highest wisdom of the human being to obey gladly and unhesitatingly, and the teacher thus inspired with truth rightfully commands our grateful and profound reverence. But this claim may also mean the unconscious arrogance of a mind taking too narrow a view of science—a mind which, whilst earnest and laborious in investigating partial phenomena, is intoxicated by the discovery of new facts with the theories which can be built upon them, and at once announces himself as one of the priests of a new religion demanding absolute obedience; for the temptation of all priesthoods is to form an esoteric sect.
In this second case it is the bounden duty of every truthful mind to refuse obedience. For untilthe claim is fully examined in all its aspects, in both its physical and mental relations, and sustained by the deliberate and hearty assent of all intelligent minds and the instinctive accord of the people generally, this demand for absolute obedience to the theories of so-called science must be resolutely withstood as a reintroduction of mischievous and degrading superstition.
The special occasion which led to this unfortunate claim for dictation, or the compulsory regulation of disease by specialists, was the subject of tuberculosis and the exaggerated claim of the modern bacteriologist that the tubercle bacillus is the sole primary cause of consumption, with the logical claim that, as only the thoroughly-trained specialist can detect this bacillus, consumption should be scheduled as a contagious disease, and subjected to the rigorous regulations of the specialist and his board of advisers.
As our largest item in annual mortality is death from tuberculosis—about 14 per cent. with us—and as food and airmayintroduce a bacillus into the system, we can dimly imagine the extent to which the claim for dictation may grow in ‘accordance with logic.’
Many striking instances of crude official tyranny were revealed by our Canadian and other foreign delegates. Thus, railway passengers from Montreal to Ontario were compulsorily revaccinated on the train before being allowed to enter Ontario.[5]Thefoolish and fallacious system of attempting toregulatespecial vice was seen to prevail largely in the inexperienced civilizations of Canada and Western United States.
Scientific Inquisitors.—I will here quote a late statement of Professor Huxley’s, which might well be emblazoned in all our medical schools. He says: ‘We are at the beginning of our knowledge instead of at the end of it; the limitation of our faculties is such that we never can set bounds to the possibilities of nature. The verdict may be always more or less wrong, the best information being never complete, and the best reasoning liable to fallacy.
‘The greatest mistake those who are interested in free thought can make is to overlook these limitations and deck themselves with the dogmatic feathers which are the traditional adornments of opponents.’
This vigorous protest of our English naturalist against the dictation of so-called science is in striking accord with the observations of our French visitors in relation to the futility of compulsory legislation now urged by scientific specialists.
What is Science?—When the investigators in any limited branch of knowledge glibly use the term ‘science’ to compel assent or to enforce legislation, we are forced to ask, Whatistrue science or certain knowledge grounded on demonstration, as distinguished from false science, which is uncertainknowledge, based upon varying and imperfectly observed phenomena or upon theory? Knowledge is of various kinds: Mental, Physical, Mathematical. These separate departments of knowledge rest equally on bases of fact. Love is as much a fact as bread-and-butter; justice is as potent in its effects as microbes; and from their wider range of action and more permanent duration these mental facts are far morerealthan the physical phenomena.
In determining the claim of science to obedience the great Law of Unity gives the guiding principle, which, however humbling to human arrogance, or however affirmative of the limitations of our intellect, the truly scientific mind is bound to accept.
The Law of Unity the Foundation of Science.—The Law of Unity teaches us that no explanation of any fact is final or ‘true’ if it contradicts other facts. It announces that no method of examining facts is reliable that destroys other facts equally patent, and that any results deducible from partial phenomena, however interesting or even apparently useful, can only be regarded from the point of view of true science as temporary expedients. They may possibly be recommendations for useful trial, but they can never be justified as subjects for dictation.
The confusion of thought which has brought the unnatural practices of inoculation into fashion may be usefully illustrated by dwelling on the mingling of truth and error which exists in relation to vaccination. Vaccination must not be confounded withinoculation, although the word ‘vaccination’ is now incorrectly used by bacteriologists to cover up the alarming practice of injecting the diluted virus of any particular disease, which is inoculation. Vaccination, on the other hand, is solely the injection of matter derived from a disease in the vacca, which disease is neither small-pox nor derived from small-pox, and vaccinia in a healthy cow is a mild disease.
During a lifetime of medical practice I have vaccinated children (sharing the widespread belief that it was preventive of small-pox). The practice, however, has always seemed to be an unsatisfactory method, which I hoped increased knowledge of sanitation would enable us to improve.
I also recognised the powerful influence of fear in predisposing to disease, and I regarded vaccination as a sedative for the family or community. My faith in the innocence of this practice was, however, rudely shaken by the lamentable death, in my own practice, of a scrofulous infant—a death clearly caused by the phagedenic ulceration produced by the vaccination. I also noted the accumulating evidence of very serious diseases communicated by so-called vaccine lymph.
Vaccination not Scientific.—But Professor Crookshank, in his exhaustive work lately published on vaccination, has conclusively proved the unscientific character of the evidence on which this practice is based, our ignorance of the sources of the virus commonly used and its mode of action, and also theuncertainty of its prophylactic power.[6]That the generally mild disorder of vaccination, although arbitrarily and even tyrannically enforced on every child born in our country, does not prove the prevention of small-pox which it is claimed to be, is shown by the recurrence of epidemics of small-pox amongst us, by the occurrence of the disease in vaccinated persons, and also by the demand now made by the French Academy of Medicine (which recognises the failure of our system of vaccination) for legislative powers to compel repeated revaccination. This demand for power of indefinite revaccination is a logical demand. For, proceeding on the assumed premiss that vaccination prevents small-pox, but being met by the inexorable fact that epidemics of small-poxdooccur and spread amongst vaccinated people, the cause of this contradiction is assumed to be that the supposed preventive power of vaccination has been thrown out of the system, and must therefore be again renewed. Logically, therefore, not only the infant must be subjected, but the child, the adolescent, and the adult. All must be compulsorily revaccinated, as the human system undergoes a change at each of those periods of growth.
The history of the struggle against compulsion in vaccination is very interesting, as a strong condemnation of that arrogance of false science which presumes to trample on human rights whilstneglecting hygienic conditions. As all intelligent persons should be able to form a practical judgment on the important question at issue, I should like to dwell a moment on the subject of immunity, a fact (though now misapplied) on which compulsory vaccination is based.
Immunity.—Observation has long shown us that when the human system is gradually exposed to injurious influences, a certain tolerance of those influences may be acquired, which often enables those exposed to them to escape immediate death, although with impaired health, whilst healthy persons suddenly exposed to the same injurious influences die. This is a well-known fact, capable of abundant verification. Thus, persons long resident in a badly-drained house, although frequently ailing in various ways, may never be laid up with typhoid fever; a certain immunity has been obtained by the slow adaptation of the system to bad air, but at the sacrifice of vigorous health. But if a new and healthy family move into the same house a deadly outbreak of typhoid or diphtheria may at once result.
In the malarious districts of the United States a large scattered population of what are called by the negroes ‘mean whites’ continue to live, with clay-coloured faces, enlarged spleens, and impaired vitality, yet for a stranger to sleep in those regions is deadly. The strong tendency to live, which we call vitality, though it has enabled those born and brought up under injurious influences to struggle on through life, does not prove equal to resistance in many constitutionssuddenly exposed to the injurious influences. The medical statistics of our army in India show that the newly-arrived is far more apt to suffer from enteric fever than one who has been long in the country.
‘The percentage of deaths from this cause is nearly fivefold greater in the first or second year of service than from the sixth to the tenth year. Medical officers are unable to trace out in any given instance a definite insanitary condition to which with certainty the outbreak can be attributed.’
There is, therefore, fact for theory to be built on—viz., the possible adaptation of the human constitution to injurious influences, an adaptation which, whilst impairing general vigour, often produces immunity from rapid death.
This fact, confirmed in the mind of the bacteriologist by the fallacious system of diseasing animals as ‘témoins’ or ‘controls,’ has given rise to the dangerous theory that all contagious diseases may be forestalled in their most deadly form by the inoculation of human beings with diluted virus produced by those diseases. This dangerous belief has been widely fostered by the unfortunate educational influence of the law of compulsory vaccination. But it must be observed that vaccination, unlike inoculation, does not introduce any products of the special disease—small-pox—into the system. The vaccine disease in the cow is not small-pox, nor can it ever be made to produce small-pox. The preservative power which is claimed for it, therefore, has not the dangers which are attached to inoculation, butneither can it claim the occasional immunity which may attend that dangerous practice of introducing small-pox virus into the blood. Pure air, cleanliness, and decent house-room secured to all our people, form the true prophylaxis of small-pox.
Exaggeration of Bacteriology.—We observe how neglect of the Law of Unity is misleading the intellect in relation to bacteriology. This subject, useful if pursued without cruelty and in subordination to higher facts, has become a mischievous exaggeration[7]both as to what it signifies and as to what it may lead to.
The majority of our active and intelligent medical investigators are now intensely engaged in the search for a microbe as the primarycauseof every disease known to humanity. Cancer, leprosy, fevers, hydrophobia, diphtheria, tetanus, insanity, etc., are being largely studied by this imperfect method, in hope of finding a characteristic microbe which can be pronounced the essential cause of the disease. The great mental energy of biological investigators is diverted from sanitary investigation to the search for fresh bacilli. Admirable perseverance, acute ingenuity, unwearied energy are devoted to this search.
Advantage has been taken of the helplessness ofthe lower animals to carry on a system of experimentation upon them, the extent and ruthlessness of which has never before been attempted. Disease is studiously propagated. Myriads of healthy living creatures are filled with loathsome disease in order to furnish ‘material’ for experimentation. So many kilos of dog or rabbit (used for injecting disease, or noted as more or less slowly resisting the death thus gradually inflicted) is a common expression now used in experimentation, and supposed to give ‘scientific accuracy’ to experiments. It is a pitiful intellectual fallacy of short-sighted materialism that supposes it possible to obtain ‘scientific accuracy’ by regarding so many kilos of living dog as if they could be experimented on as so many kilos of dead matter, or as if they were the materials of a steam-engine, which can be taken apart, examined, cleaned, tested, and put together again in complete working order.
This diversion of intellectual ability from the true path of sanitation by an exaggerated search for bacilli leads directly to the dangerous practice of inoculation, which threatens the future deterioration of the human race. As one of the most distinguished of our hygienists, the late Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson, has pronounced, ‘inoculation is bad sanitation.’[8]
Sanitary law teaches us that disease is produced by many causes, not solely by a specific microbe.
These causes are insanitary conditions, which impair or destroy the agents required by our human constitution for its healthy growth, and which act with varying force according to individual tendency. These insanitary conditions, in the course of their operation upon varying individual constitutions, produce various forms of disease, as chill may produce rheumatism, bronchitis, or diarrhœa, according to idiosyncrasy. These varying idiosyncrasies of individuals, both in their physical and mental aspects, as well as the varying action of vital force in different classes of animals, will always vitiate the theories of materialistic investigators. Thus the same poison will not destroy all classes of living creatures. A healthy young dog has been known to resist for months strenuous efforts made to disease him in a particular way. The same disease germs produce quite different forms of disturbance in men and in rabbits.
‘We possess no clue to the immunity of certain animals from poison. Rabbits fed on belladonna show no signs of injury, although their flesh becomes poisonous to those who eat it. Pigeons and other herbivora may be safe from what will cause paralysis and asphyxia in other animals. The meat of goats may similarly become poisonous.
‘Chickens, cats, birds, rodents, are variously affected by poisons, some thriving on what will kill other animals. The whole cat tribe is said to be always proof against morphia.’
Drs. Hahn and von Bergmann, in attempting to justify their cancer-grafting experiments on hospital patients, affirm that ‘it was necessary to select human beings for experiment, inasmuch as none of the lower animals would have been suitable for their purpose.’
Sanitary law teaches us that unhealthy conditions vitiate the living micro-organisms with which we are surrounded, and which, naturally beneficial, may become, through violation of natural law, morbid germs, capable of spreading their various forms of disease amongst persons predisposed to such disease. Thus, according to sanitary law, the violated health conditions (vitiating naturally innocuous particles) are the primary cause of disease; the morbid germ or bacillus is only the secondary cause.
The new bacteriological theory directly contradicts this important law of sanitary experience, and in opposition to it authoritatively announces that contagious or infectious disease can never be produced without the antecedent microbe. It was in defence of this untenable theory that the distinguished professor claimed the ‘right of science to dictate.’
The great mistake, therefore, made by the Hygienic Congress was the neglect of mind as an indispensable and prominent factor in Health, and the exaltation of bacteriology, with the theories based upon it, into the chief point of interest and importance.
The modern exaggeration of bacteriology, with its theory of inoculation, must be steadily opposed by all who realize the power and growing influence ofspiritual life. The injurious results of this exaggeration may be summarized as follows:
The Practical Dangers arising from erroneous Scientific Method.—1. It diverts invaluable intellectual activity into methods of comparatively futile investigation. These investigations lead very widely to the exercise of fraud and cruelty upon the lower animals, and tend to reckless experiment on the poor. They waste much time and spread the contagion of intellectual error amongst the students of all our medical schools, where the false practices of experimentation are increasingly carried on. They also pervert the moral sense of the great army of assistants, caretakers, porters, nurses, and others connected with our medical institutions, who become aware of the cruel practices which so largely accompany this method of research.
2. This perversion of medical activity misleads our Parliamentary representatives, who are bewildered by pseudo-science authoritatively announcing itself as Truth, and permits a rapid increase of officialism to crush opposition and force the dicta of superficial ‘science’ upon the protesting conscience of intelligent people. It also misleads the community by fallacious articles in popular magazines, in which facts, theories, statistics, and assertions, often incorrect, are given with an imposing air of science, in relation to which the ordinary reader is quite unable to discriminate the true from the false.
3. The diversion of medical activity from thetrue path of Preventive Medicine not only hinders the progress of sanitation, but is producing an increasing revolt of common-sense and popular feeling against what are erroneously supposed to be the necessary methods of medicine and the practice of dispensary and hospital. This growing feeling in the community increases the dread with which the poor generally regard the hospital, and it also seriously diminishes the pecuniary support which the well-to-do would otherwise gladly extend to their sick and suffering fellow-creatures.
Conclusion.—In considering the foregoing record of facts it is seen to be a fundamental error, not only in a Hygienic Congress, but inallmedical thought and practice, to look only at the body, and not consider those spiritual facts which precede, animate, and succeed the flesh. It is also certain that in the application of hygiene to daily life we may as well pour water into a sieve as hope to enforce permanently practical hygienic measures without enlisting the goodwill of the people in their observance.
As the solution of the two great problems of hygiene—viz., ‘What are the laws and conditions of healthy growth?’ and ‘How can these conditions be secured?’ rests upon principles of spiritual truth, those principles are of fundamental importance in directing human intelligence into right lines of investigation. Being compelled to use the imperfect symbolism of language, we speak of mind and matter,of spiritualism and materialism, as if they were separate or contradictory entities. But this is a limitation in the expression of thought to be recognised and carefully guarded against in thought itself. There can be no real contradiction between Religion and Science; they are only varying manifestations in human thought of Truth, which is essentially one. Our effort must be to unite these manifestations in thought, and thus gain the only safe guidance possible to us for practical action.
The great fundamental principle of our human constitution is incarnation—i.e., spirit shaping form—the Universal manifesting itself in the phenomenal. This principle is the foundation of sanitary science. It forms the basis of the Moral Law which must be the guide of science.
When this principle is understood and applied, it enlarges the intellect and enlightens the conscience. It transforms the narrow, self-centred or arrogant individual into the humble inquirer and sharer of the larger Diviner life.
This universalization of the individual resides essentially in the Will of man, and is the foundation of conscience—conscience which, gradually enlarged by the growing intellect, is the great guide of the human race in its struggle upwards.
This universalization of the primitive self-centred life leads to the realization of Sin. When we enter that Garden of Gethsemane where the woes of the world, the murders and seductions, the cruelties andhypocrisies, are revealed in all their hideousness, we realize that we are partakers in this Sin; for it is the result of that self-centred arrogance, that selfishness with which each one has to fight, and which is the essence of Sin. It is through this tremendous conviction that all must enter into that life of the Universal, where alone is true freedom, and where alone the fulness of individual life is to be found. Only by this saturation with the Universal does that hatred of Sin arise which makes sins henceforth impossible.
Then the recognition of Right and Wrong in human action becomes clear, and the supremacy of the Moral Law inevitable.
It is indispensable to refer to these deeper principles of existence in considering their varied application. They give force to those condensed maxims of practical wisdom which, transmitted to us from the experience of our forefathers, are guides for our present daily life.
‘Never do evil that good may come’ is a proverb so familiar to us in various forms that we fail to see the profound wisdom which it expresses.
It is a confession of that intellectual limitation which cannot foresee complicated results; it is an acceptance of that inflowing light of conscience (however dim) by which everyone must honestly walk; it is the subjection of the narrow, self-centred Will to the Universal Life by which the individual becomes a free co-worker with the Divine.
Physiology rightly studied in the light of thisfundamental principle—incarnation—vindicates the supremacy of the Moral Law, which is the Law of Unity, or transfiguration of the Self. It gives the perception of Right and Wrong. The Law of the Universal, reverently and intelligently studied, will guide all practical action; it will show us how to build a hospital, plan a medical school, organize an institute of preventive medicine, legislate for a community, or guide the individual life.
The Law of Unity relegates bacteriology to its proper place as a branch of pathology, and proves that truth cannot be gained by searching into the quivering organs of tortured animals. It shows us also that individual health cannot be secured by building a Chinese wall around one’s self. We cannot stop the revolution of the earth in an atmosphere which may bring bacilli from inundated China, from starved Russia, from leprous India, or from the slums of the West.
We must work gradually towards the realization of our ideal—Health—and work in many directions and on many lines. Advancing sanitation will place our future hospitals in country neighbourhoods, with only temporary receiving houses and dispensaries in large towns.
‘The oldest hospitals were the temples of Esculapius, where Divine assistance was sought.’ To these Asclepeia, always erected on healthy sites, hard-by fresh springs and surrounded by shady groves, the sick and maimed resorted to seek the aid of the ‘god of Health.’ To this wisdom of the ancients we mustcertainly return when the present tendency to subordinate the welfare of the sick to the convenience of students be checked.
The most urgent need which now exists in our profession is the establishment of an Institute of Preventive Medicine guided by the Moral Law. Such an Institute will recognise that mind and matter meet in the fact called Life, will reverently study all the conditions and laws of healthy life, and not be diverted from this great aim by curious investigations into artificially propagated disease.
The study of the biological sciences, comparative and human physiology, morphology, histology, electro-chemical action, etc., is most important and necessary for the advancement of medical science; but these can be studied without any violation of the moral Law of Unity. It is necessary to study the forms and functions of life which are manifested in organisms lower than man. The laws which govern animal and vegetable growth form important steps towards our increasing knowledge of human physiology and sanitary law; but these can only yield true and available facts when studied through the natural and healthy working of the objects of study. The artificial production of mental or physical disease by fear and suffering vitiates the natural order of life, and leads to error in observation and induction from such observation. Torture is not only unsuited to laboratory work, but is an inevitable source of error in results. A laboratory or workroom should never be degraded into a torture-chamber.Experiment should never degenerate into curiosity or inhumanity.[9]
In the future a wise Institute of Preventive Medicine may possibly be placed in the healthy country. Around such an Institute for wise research a well-planned health colony could grow up, which would be of enormous utility to the overworked brains of our most valuable people. It would be a health centre where the weary brain could be refreshed and its vigour renewed by the restorative effects of manual labour. Guided by true science, it would teach our teachers and our legislators. Here they might learn to reverence those laws of health which are equally violated by overworked brains and overworked muscles. An Institute of Preventive Medicine genuinely ‘scientific’ would be the soul of such a health centre.
But such a colony can only be created when narrow selfhood has been transfigured by the universal life; for, as has been finely said: ‘True social integration will follow upon spiritual integration, and upon nothing else.’
Whilst working towards a fuller realization of our ideal we must respect and aid, as far as we can, those isolated efforts to deal with special transgressions of the Moral Law which are really steps onward in thegrowth of humanity. Separate efforts to advance temperance and purity, justice to women and children, to the poor and weak, to the humbler animals, our fellow-creatures, are all efforts to be heartily encouraged. Each effort forms a little step out of selfishness into large religious life. Although those who realize the Law of Unity cannot rest in any isolated work, yet it is by the honest fighting of sins that we grow into that hatred of Sin which will lead to its destruction; and by the slow perception of truths we gradually approach that ineffable Light of Truth which will melt away the chains of selfhood, and set us free in the larger liberty of the Universal Life.