Euthenics, the science of controllable environment Part 1

Euthenics, the science of controllable environment.

by Ellen H. Richards.

FOREWORD

Never has society been so clear as to its several special ends, never has so little effort been due to chance or compulsion.

_Ralph Barton Perry, The Moral Economy._

Not through chance, but through increase of scientific knowledge; not through compulsion, but through democratic idealism consciously working through common interests, will be brought about the creation of right conditions, the control of environment.

The betterment of living conditions, through conscious endeavor, for the purpose of securing efficient human beings, is what the author means by EUTHENICS.[1]

[1] Eutheneo, ??????? (_eu_, well; _the_, root of _t.i.themi_, to cause). To be in a flourishing state, to abound in, to prosper.--_Demosthenes._ To be strong or vigorous.--_Herodotus._ To be vigorous in body.--_Aristotle._

Euthenia, ??????a. Good state of the body: prosperity, good fortune, abundance.--_Herodotus._

"Human vitality depends upon two primary conditions--heredity and hygiene--or conditions preceding birth and conditions during life."[2]

[2] Report on National Vitality, p. 49.

Eugenics deals with race improvement through heredity.

Euthenics deals with race improvement through environment.

Eugenics is hygiene for the future generations.

Euthenics is hygiene for the present generation.

Eugenics must await careful investigation.

Euthenics has immediate opportunity.

Euthenics precedes eugenics, developing better men now, and thus inevitably creating a better race of men in the future. Euthenics is the term proposed for the preliminary science on which Eugenics must be based.

This new science seeks to emphasize the immediate duty of man to better his conditions by availing himself of knowledge already at hand. As far as in him lies he must make application of this knowledge to secure his greatest efficiency under conditions which he can create or under such existing conditions as he may not be able wholly to control, but such as he may modify. The knowledge of the causes of disease tends only to depress the average citizen rather than to arouse him to combat it. Hope of success will urge him forward, and it is the duty of lovers of mankind to show all possible ways of attaining the goal. The tendency to hopelessness r.e.t.a.r.ds reformation and regeneration, and the lack of belief in success holds back the wheels of progress.

Euthenics is to be developed:

1. Through sanitary science.

2. Through education.

3. Through relating science and education to life.

Students of sanitary science discover for us the laws which make for health and the prevention of disease. The laboratory has been studying conditions and causes, and now can show the way to many remedies.

A knowledge of these laws, of the means of conserving man's resources and vitality, which will result in the wealth of human energy, is more and more brought within the reach of all by various educational agencies.

The individual must estimate properly the value of this knowledge in its application to daily life, in order to secure efficiency and the greatest happiness for himself and for the community.

Right living conditions comprise pure food and a safe water supply, a clean and disease-free atmosphere in which to live and work, proper shelter, and the adjustment of work, rest, and amus.e.m.e.nt. The attainment of these conditions calls for hearty cooperation between individual and community--effort on the part of the individual because the individual makes personality a power; effort on the part of the community because the strength of combined endeavor is required to meet all great problems.

EUTHENICS

BETTER ENVIRONMENT FOR THE HUMAN RACE

CHAPTER I

_The opportunity for betterment is real and 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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 G.o.d 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, have been brought under control, and their existence today is due only to the carelessness or the ignorance of individuals.

On the other hand, such results of improper personal living as do not come under legal control--diseases of the heart, kidneys, and general degeneration, matters of personal hygiene--have so enormously increased as in themselves to show the att.i.tude of mind of the great ma.s.s of the people, "Let us eat and drink and be merry, what if we do die tomorrow!"

Probably not more than twenty-five per cent in any community are doing a full day's work such as they would be capable of doing if they were in perfect health. This adds to the length of the school course, to the cost of production in all directions, to increased taxation, and decreases interest in daily life.