To one who has been an eye-witness of the wonderful achievements of American medical science in the conquest of acute communicable and pestilential diseases in those regions of the earth where they were supposed to be impregnably entrenched, there is the strongest possible appeal in the present rapidly growing movement for the improvement of physical efficiency and the conquest of chronic diseases of the vital organs.

Through the patient, intelligent and often heroic work of our army medical men, and the staff of the United States Public Health Service, death-rates supposedly fixed have been cut in half.

The insidious encroachment of the chronic diseases that sap the vitality of the individual and impair the efficiency of the race is a matter of increasing importance. The mere extension of human life is not only in itself an end to be desired, but the well digested scientific facts presented in this volume clearly show that the most direct and effective means of lengthening human life are at the same time those that make it more livable and add to its power and capacity for achievement.

Many years ago, Disraeli, keenly alive to influences affecting national prosperity, stated: “Public Health is the foundation on which reposes the happiness of the people and the power of a country. The care of the public health is the first duty of a statesman.” It may well be claimed that the care of individual and family health is the first and most patriotic duty of a citizen.

The purpose of this book is to spread knowledge of Individual Hygiene and thus to promote the aims of the Life Extension Institute. These may be summarized briefly as: (1) to provide the individual and the physician with the latest and best conclusions on individual hygiene; (2) to ascertain the exact and special needs of the individual through periodic health examinations; (3) to induce all persons who are found to be in need of medical attention to visit their physicians.

Future advances of knowledge will doubtless occasion additions to, or modifications of, the conclusions stated herein, and these will form the subject of subsequent publications by the Institute.

The Chairman of the Board has exercised the function of editor, and is responsible for the order and arrangement of the material.

Friends of the Institute may help its work by spreading the ideas given in the following pages and by increasing the number of its readers. Such profits as may be received by the Institute from the sale of this book will be devoted to further philanthropic effort by the Institute.

IRVING FISHER, Chairman
Professor of Political Economy
Yale University

Statistics

• WILLIAM J. HARRIS, Federal Trade Commission, United States Government.
• CRESSY L. WILBUR, M.D., Director, Division of Vital Statistics, Dept. of Health, State of New York.
• WALTER F. WILLCOX, Professor of Economics and Statistics, Cornell University.

Public Health Administration

Medicine and Surgery

• LEWELLYS F. BARKER, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University.
• GEORGE BLUMER, M.D., Dean Tale Medical School.
• GEORGE W. CRILE, M.D., Professor Clinical Surgery, Western Reserve University.
• DAVID L. EDSALL, M.D., Professor Clinical Medicine, Harvard University.
• HENRY, B. FAVILL, M.D., Professor Clinical Medicine, Rush Medical College.
• J. H. KELLOGG, M.D., Superintendent Battle Creek Sanitarium.
• S. ADOLPHUS KNOPF, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Department of Phthisiotherapy, New York Post Graduate Medical School.
• WILLIAM J. MAYO, M.D., Ex-President American Medical Association.
• VICTOR C. VAUGHAN, M.D., Dean, Dept. of Medicine and Surgery, University of Michigan, Ex-President American Medical Association.
• HUGH HAMPTON YOUNG, M.D., Assoc. Professor of Urological Surgery, Johns Hopkins University and Hospital.

Chemistry, Bacteriology, Pathology, Physiology, Biology

Eugenics

• ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, M.D., Board of Scientific Directors, Eugenics Record Office.
• C. B. DAVENPORT, Director Carnegie Station for Experimental Evolution; Director Eugenics Record Office.
• DAVID STARR JORDAN, Chancellor Leland Stanford Junior University; Chief Director World Peace Foundation.
• ELMER E. SOUTHARD, M.D., Professor of Neuropathology, Harvard Medical School; Pathologist to Massachusetts State Board of Insanity.

Organized Philanthropy

Educational

• SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS, Author.
• W. H. BURNHAM, Professor of Pedagogy and School Hygiene, Clark University.
• CHARLES H. CASTLE, M.D., Editor Lancet Clinic.
• W. A. EVANS, M.D., Professor Sanitary Science, Northwestern University Medical School; Health Editor, Chicago Tribune.
• BURNSIDE FOSTER, M.D., Editor St. Paul Medical Journal.
• FREDERICK R. GREEN, M.D., Secretary Council on Health and Public Instruction, American Medical Association.
• NORMAN HAPGOOD, Editor Harper’s Weekly.
• ARTHUR P. KELLOGG, Managing Editor, The Survey.
• J. N. McCORMACK, Chief Sanitary Inspector, Board of Health, State of Kentucky.
• M. V. O’SHEA, Professor of Education, University of Wisconsin.
• HON. WALTER H. PAGE, Ambassador to England.
• GEORGE H. SIMMONS, M.D., Editor Journal American Medical Association.
• HARVEY W. WILEY, M.D., Director Bureau of Foods, Sanitation and Health, Good Housekeeping Magazine.
• HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, M.D., Author.

Industrial Hygiene

• JOHN B. ANDREWS, Secretary American Association for Labor Legislation.
• THOMAS DARLINGTON, M.D., Secretary American Iron and Steel Institute.
• NORMAN E. DITMAN, M.D., Trustee, American Museum of Safety.
• GEORGE M. KOBER, M.D., Dean Medical School of Georgetown University.
• W. GILMAN THOMPSON, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Cornell University Medical School.
• WILLIAM H. TOLMAN, Director The American Museum of Safety.

Mouth Hygiene

• W. G. EBERSOLE, M.D., D.D.S., Secretary-Treasurer, The National Mouth Hygiene Association.
• ALFRED C. FONES, D.D.S., Chairman Dental Committee, Bridgeport Board of Health.

Physical Training

Foreign Advisory Board

AUSTRIA

• LUDWIG TELEKY, M.D., Department of Social Medicine, Vienna University.

CANADA

• JOHN GEORGE ADAMI, M.D., Professor of Pathology and Bacteriology, McGill University, Montreal.

ENGLAND

• SIR THOMAS OLIVER, Professor of Physiology, Durham University.

FRANCE

• ARMAND GAUTIER, M.D., Professor of Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Paris.

GERMANY

• PROF. DR. KARL FLÜGGE, Director Hygienic Institute, Berlin.

ITALY

• LEONARDO BIANCHI, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Naples.

JAPAN

• PROF. DR. S. KITASATO, Chief of the Kitasato Institute for Infectious Diseases, Tokyo.

RUSSIA

The purpose of the Life Extension Institute embraces the extension of human life, not only as to length, but also, if we may so express it, as to breadth and depth. It endeavors to accomplish this purpose in many ways, but especially through individual hygiene.

Thoroughly carried out, individual hygiene implies high ideals of health, strength, endurance, symmetry, and beauty; it enormously increases our capacity to work, to be happy, and to be useful; it develops, not only the body, but the mind and the heart; it ennobles the man as a whole.

We are beginning to cut loose from this false tradition and are working toward the establishment of more wholesome ideals. It is probably true, for instance, that the man or the woman who is unhealthy is now handicapped in opportunities for marriage, which may be considered an index to the ideals of society.

A great health movement is sweeping over the entire world. Hygiene has repudiated the outworn doctrine that mortality is fatality and must exact year after year a fixed and inevitable sacrifice. It aims instead to set free human life by applying modern science. Science, which has revolutionized every other field of human endeavor, is at last revolutionizing the field of health conservation.

Furthermore, the preventive methods of modern medicine are being applied by the people themselves, as witness the great vogue to-day of sleeping out of doors; the popularity, not always deserved, of health foods and drinks; the demand for uncontaminated water supplies, certified milk, inspected meat and pure foods generally; the world-wide movement against alcohol, and the legislation to correct wrong conditions of labor and to safeguard the laborer.

Air is the first necessity of life. We may live without food for days and without water for hours; but we cannot live without air more than a few minutes. Our air supply is therefore of more importance than our water or food supply, and good ventilation becomes the first rule of hygiene.

Living and working rooms should be ventilated both before occupancy and while occupied.

It must be remembered that the mere construction of the proper kind of buildings does not insure ventilation. We may have model dwellings, with ideal window-space and ventilating apparatus, but unless these are actually used, we do not benefit thereby.