Euthenics, the science of controllable environment. Ellen H. Richards

Applying this to the 3,000,000 years of illness annually experienced, we have $1,500,000,000 as the minimum annual cost of this kind.

“The statistics of the Commissioner of Labor show that the expenditure for illness and death amounts to twenty-seven dollars per family per annum. This is for workingmen’s families only. But even this figure, if applied to the 17,000,000 families of the United States, would make the total bill caring for illness and death $460,000,000. The true cost may well be more than twice this sum. Certainly the estimate is more than safe, and is only one-third of the sum obtained by using Dr. Biggs’s estimate. The sum of the costs of illness, including loss of wages and cost of care, is thus $460,000,000 plus $500,000,000 equals $960,000,000. … At least three-quarters of the costs are preventable.”[3]

      The cost of certain preventable diseases a year is estimated by various authorities as:

Tuberculosis	$1,000,000,000
Typhoid	250,000,000
Malaria	100,000,000
Other insect diseases	100,000,000

      A hopeful sign of awakening is the endeavor by life insurance companies to bring home to the people the possibilities of race betterment. One company sends out among its policy holders trained nurses, who give plain talks on health subjects and offer practical suggestions as to hygienic living. This, to be sure, is on the economic basis of money saving, but if that is the only thing that will appeal to the people is it not wise to seize upon it as a lever to lift the standard of well-being?

      The possibility of saving the enormous sums that are lost by reason of premature deaths was an alluring subject to the insurance men. It gave to the world what, up to that time, it had lacked—a body of powerful men who recognized that they had a financial interest in preventing the needless death of men and women.

      A table has been prepared showing that if insurance companies were to expend $200,000 a year for the purely commercial object of reducing their death losses, and should thereby decrease them only twelve one-hundredths of one per cent, they would save enough to cover the expense.

“If such a plan as this were placed on a purely scientific basis and carried out by good business methods, and all the companies pulled together for the common good, I should expect a decrease in death claims of more than one per cent; and a decrease in the death claims of one per cent would mean that the companies would save more than eight times as much as they expended, or would make a net saving of more than seven times the expense, which would be about a million and a half dollars a year.”[4]

“While it would be impossible to state in general terms how rich a return lies ready for public or private investments in good health, these examples (life insurance) show that the rate of this return is quite beyond the dreams of avarice. Were it possible for the public to realize this fact, motives both of economy and of humanity would dictate immediate and generous expenditure of public moneys for improving the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, as well as for eliminating the dangers of life and limb which now surround us.”[5]

      Undoubtedly a moral force is to be strengthened by spreading the biological lesson that man cannot live to himself alone, but that his acts or failure to act affect a large number of his fellowmen. Also, a stimulus to personal ambition is to be supplied in the suggestion of better health and consequently more money to spend as a result.

      Civic pride and private gain will be brought into the endeavor to show man that to understand himself, to exercise the same control over his activities that he uses over his machines, is to double his capacity, not only for work, but for pleasure. This control is now possible through the application of recently confirmed scientific knowledge as to man’s environment.

      It is the aim of this book to arouse the thinking portion of the community to the opportunity of the present moment for inculcating such standards of living as shall tend to the increase of health and happiness.

      To the women of America has come an opportunity to put their education, their power of detailed work, and any initiative they may possess at the service of the State.

      Faith, Hope, and Courage may be taken as the three potent watchwords of the New Crusade. There is a real contagion of ideas as well as of disease germs.

      FOOTNOTES:

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      [3] Report on National Vitality, p. 119.

      [4] Hiram J. Messenger, Travelers Insurance Co., Hartford, Conn.

[5] Report on National Vitality, p. 123.

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       Individual effort is needed to improve individual conditions. Home and habits of living. Good habits pay in economy of time and force.

      The hope is springing up in some minds that the entire problem of human regeneration will be much simplified when men shall have learned more fully the nature of their own lives, the nature of the physical world that environs them, and the interaction between this physical world and the spirit of man which is set to subdue it.

      Prof. George E. Dawson, The Control of Life through Environment.

      We create the evil as well as the good. Nature is impersonal. To an increasing degree man determines.

      Carl Kelsey.

      The only certain remedy for any disease is man’s own vital power.

      Today only an exceptional man, almost a genius, learns to modify his habits and his life to his environment and to triumph over his surroundings, his appetites, and the absurd dictates of fashion.

      Richard Cole Newton, M.D., How Shall the Destructive

       Tendencies of Modern Life Be Met and Overcome?

      We have certain inherent capacities as to bodily strength, length of life, etc., but it lies largely with ourselves to adopt a mode of life which may make an actual difference in height, weight, and physical strength and intellectual capacity.

      E. H. Richards, Sanitation in Daily Life.

      There are two recognized ways of improving the quality of human beings: one by giving them a better heredity—starting them in life with a stronger heart, better digestion, steadier nerves; the other by so combining the factors of daily life that even a weak heart may grow strong, a poor digestion may become good, and frayed nerves gain steadiness.

      E. H. Richards, The Art of Right Living.

CHAPTER II

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FAITH

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