Section 50:  Essay on Health

Whether people are healthier now than fifty years ago I cannot tell, but there is no doubt they are better protected from wet and cold and are better housed and fed. On the other hand they are far more apt to be drugged with medicine and dosed with candies and highly seasoned food. It would be at least a curious experiment to raise an army of boys and girls as Lycurgus raised his Greek boys so as to develop the greatest amount of bone and muscle and animal courage and make perfect men and women. Whether the perfectly developed bodies would not produce equally vigorous minds, and they or their children reproduce a race of men like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates.

This I have no doubt of -- the more perfectly all parts of the body are developed, the more masculine and vigorous the mind will be because the brain, through which the mind acts, is part of the body and the harmonious development of all the members and parts of the body, the stronger, broader and higher will be the moral power and intellect of the man. Now there are indications that more time and attention will in the near future be given to the physical culture of our youth, and this map be found far more important than stuffing education into an effeminate and nervous brain, and then the athletic frame can use the acquired knowledge with far more power and effect than the weak or diseased. Whether physical culture will ever be successfully cultivated will be a problem for the 20th Century.

In this climate of ours it has been claimed that the human species deteriorate. There is some grounds for this. I have noticed in the course of my life that the children of heavy-boned, broad shouldered, large men are much smaller than their fathers, and some are dyspeptic and effeminate. While this is not universally the case, it is so general that it may be said to be the rule. My recollection of the men that first settled and cleared the land in Kishacoquillas Valley is that they were larger, stronger men than their sons and grandsons who inhabit it today. There are very few families whose sons attain the size or possess the strength of the first settlers. Our own stock of people have been in the valley for a period of about 115 years. The grandsons of old Robert Campbell, the first settler, are generally good sized and some of them quite large men, but as a rule the great grandsons are at least two sizes smaller men.

The Amish that first settled in the valley were a stalwart race of men, some giants in strength. As I see them now when I go to the valley, the present race is generally little, short, stubby fellows, probably industrious, good workers, but have not the muscle of the old stock.

Now conceding that there has been a loss of bone and muscle and that the race has deteriorated in the last seventy-five years, is it caused by the extremes of heat and cold or other climatic influences? Is the climate injurious to the healthy development of the human species? Or is the running down caused by the food or manner of life or other temporary cause? Or may it be caused by the process of becoming acclimated to a new climate? If this is the case, a generation or two ought to bring the race up again to the original standard and possibly may, but it is not unlikely that the great amount of pork and other strong food that is consumed and less heavy outdoor work such as logging and clearing land may retard the healthy growth and perfect development of the younger stock. I do not think there is any poison in the climate of Pennsylvania, only malaria, and that has got to be counteracted by observance of the laws of nature and hygiene and abstaining from highly seasoned, deleterious food.

There is scarcely a doubt that our climate causes the freshness and beauty of our women to decline earlier than in England where the extremes of heat and cold are never felt, but I know of no data that would show that the average life is longer there than in the United States. The delicacy and effeminancy of our women is probably caused by the want of outdoor exercise and active life. But as society is formed and the country grows older, common sense and the laws of nature will teach our people how to live to promote health and get the most out of life. And this will insure the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest numbers.

To make a living a man ought not to live in a constant strain, or fret because he cannot accumulate all the world; on the other hand no man or woman, rich or poor, has any right to sit down and twirl his thumbs for exercise. The human animal needs a little shaking up now and then to keep a healthy digestion and the blood circulating and develop the higher virtues of man and womanhood.