ctuate other men, and given a man's chance in the
struggle of life, his industry and genius will soon improve his
condition and bring him material prosperity, upon which depends, in a
measure, the development of moral, intellectual and physical growth.
Leisure and opportunity, comfort and freedom from sordid cares and
anxieties regarding the immediate necessities of life, must be
secured, if a race is to find time for study and thought, and to
develop its best moral and physical life. May not the Negro justly
find some consolation in his excessive mortality of to-day? May he
not believe that "death is the philosophy of life?" May he not feel
that his race is being strengthened by the dying of the weak, just as
a tree is strengthened by losing its unsound branches? If so, then the
future Negro in this country will be the fittest of "the survival of
the fittest," and will represent the grandest type of physical manhood
that the world has ever known.

FIFTH PAPER.

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY AMONG THE NEGROES IN THE
CITIES OF THE SOUTH, AND HOW IS THAT MORTALITY TO BE LESSENED?

BY DR. R. F. BOYD.

[Illustration: R. F. Boyd, A. M. M. D.]

R. F. BOYD, M. D., D. D. S.

Dr. R. F. Boyd has clearly demonstrated by energy, pluck,
ability and upright dealing with his fellowman, the
possibility of rising from poverty's hard estate to honor's
golden prize. Dr. R. F. Boyd was born and partly reared on a
farm in Giles County, Tennessee, where he learned to hoe, to
plow, to reap and to mow. When quite a boy he worked for the
famous surgeon, Dr. Paul F. Eve, in Nashville, and attended
as best he could night school in the old Fisk buildings on
Knowles street. He taught his first school at College Grove,
Tennessee. The Doctor would teach a school and at its close
re-enter Fisk University or Central Tennessee College. In
1882 he graduated from Meharry Medical College, with the
degree of M. D. He went to Mississippi and taught a high
school at New Albany and practiced his profession till the
fall of 1882, when he re-entered the Central Tennessee
College to complete his college course, receiving at the
same time an adjunct Professorship in Chemistry at Meharry
and made teacher of Physiology and Hygiene in Central
Tennessee by which he was able to pay his college expenses.
In 1883 he was made Profe