nd practical, not
merely academic._

Men ignore Nature's laws in their personal lives. They crave
a larger measure of goodness and happiness, and yet in their
choice of dwelling places, in their building of houses to
live in, in their selection of food and drink, in their
clothing of their bodies, in their choice of occupations and
amusements, in their methods and habits of work, they
disregard natural laws and impose upon themselves conditions
that make their ideals of goodness and happiness impossible
of attainment.

_Prof. George E. Dawson, The Control of Life through Environment._

And is it, I ask, an unworthy ambition for man to set before
himself to understand those eternal laws upon which his
happiness, his prosperity, his very life depend? Is he to be
blamed and anathematized for endeavoring to fulfill the
divine injunction: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for
that is the whole duty of man"? Before he can keep them,
surely he must first ascertain what they are.

_Adam Sedgwick. Address, Imperial College of Science and Technology,
December 16, 1909. Nature, December 23, 1909, p. 228._

In my judgment, the situation is hopeful. To realize that
our problems are chiefly those of environment which we in
increasing measure control, to realize that, no matter how
bad the environment of this generation, the next is not
injured provided that it be given favorable conditions, is
surely to have an optimistic view.

_Carl Kelsey, Influence of Heredity and Environment upon Race
Improvement. Annals of American Academy of Political and Social
Science, July, 1909._

CHAPTER I

It is within the power of every living man to rid himself of
every parasitic disease. _Pasteur._

Such facts as the following, showing the increase in health, or rather
the decrease in disease, go to prove what may be done.

Since 1882, tuberculosis has decreased forty-nine per cent; typhoid,
thirty-nine per cent. Statistics in regard to heart disease and other
troubles under personal control, however, show increase--kidney
disease, 131 per cent; heart disease, fifty-seven per cent; apoplexy,
eighty-four per cent. This means that infectious and contagious
diseases, of which the State has taken cognizance and to the
suppression of which it has applied known laws of science