If we are agreed upon the foregoing, let us ask ourselves a few questions.
Without any undue egotism, may it not be possible for a generation of human beings, who have progressed so far in intelligence as to be able to move things by steam, to communicate across the ocean even without wires to guide our messages, and to see clearly through objects that are as dark as night to the unassisted human eye with the aid of an artificial light, to learn the secret of right self-nutrition and practise it in a manner that will not deprive us of the maximum of pleasure which Nature invariably gives as a reward for conformity with her beneficent requirements? May we not assume that beings who have learned to breed and train horses to race with human intelligence, and to run, trot, or pace a mile in less than two minutes, may also train themselves to have the proportional relative speed, endurance, and longevity that has been attained by race horses through man’s care, and to enjoy the pleasure of living that is evident in these favoured animals, mere servitors of man though they be?
If this disparity of man is due to ignorance arising in self-neglect, which is the usual accompaniment of genius, may we not now, at the beginning of the pregnant twentieth century, rest for a moment from discovering, developing, and improving the world outside our personal selves and concentrate our attention for a while on learning to know and care for ourselves? May we not, at least, give “horse sense” attention to such a vital interest?
In the midst of the present confusion which exists among opinions as to the right conduct of life and activity, and the best manner and system of diet to be used to secure health and efficiency, it seems almost a vain appeal to call for concert of action in a matter of common and persistent neglect. Each person, as his own keeper, is careless, and in matters of bodily management no one feels called upon to be his brother’s keeper; but this is merely the lethargy of oversight and consequent ignorance, and this book is published to call attention to the oversight and to attempt to dispel the ignorance.
At the present moment of writing (October, 1903) there are quartered at New Haven, Connecticut, twenty privates of the Hospital Corps of the United States Army and three non-commissioned officers, under the command of Assistant Surgeon, Lieutenant Wallace DeWitt. These men and officers, while they are under regular army discipline and are performing duty in conformity with their oath of enlistment, are yet volunteers. They are from the same corps, if they are not the same men, which furnished volunteers to investigate the causes of yellow fever in Cuba, whose heroism resulted in stamping the fever out of the islands and in that more effectually protecting our coast states from its yearly incursions. These are the same men who generously refused to accept the offered bounty. This latter expression of exalted manhood is evidence of what humanity is whenever there is real need for heroes to serve the general good. They refused to sell themselves as risks for money, but they freely offered themselves as subjects of scientific investigation for the benefit of their fellows and of mankind at large.
The duty that the soldiers are engaged in at Yale has no element of risk, and need not have any feature of monotony or tediousness in it, much less has it the romance of sacrifice, for it deals with an attempt to restore normality and does not consort with disease. But the service being rendered by these guardians of our health, these soldiers of hygiene, is even more important than was the service rendered in stamping out yellow fever, for it deals with an enemy much more subtle, treacherous, common, and deadly than Yellow Jack. Yellow fever calls for a halt and an immediate attempt at cure, and further, for stringent defence to extermination; but indigestion and the American plague, dyspepsia, work their evils slowly but surely to cut off our best men and loveliest women in their prime and to rob us of their richest product and of their maturest wisdom.