As startling as the announcement may be to many of my readers it is nevertheless true that medicine has built upon the phenomena of “disease,” rather than upon those of health and has argued from artificial and largely pathological processes as to the norms of nature. This was inevitable. So long as man was healthy he did not feel the need of study. When he suffered or was ill, his present state of disease and not the prior state of health, demanded his attention. “Disease,” not health, presented him with the problems that demanded solution. In the very nature of things, medicine got started wrong and has never changed its course. It is still, today, studying disease and ignoring health. Medicine studied ailments and not health-sought after signs and symptoms of pathology rather than the expressions of wholeness and integrity.
For ages the study of disease has progressed. One by one the various symptoms and symptom-complexes that are presented by the diseased human body have been studied with painstaking care and praiseworthy minuteness, both upon living and dead bodies. Pathology has reached a degree of perfection unknown to most of the collateral sciences that form the science of biology. Knowledge of pathology increased by leaps and bounds after the invention of the microscope, until today, pathology is the one most important study of the medical student. Physiology, anatomy, histology, etc., are all made subservient to pathology. The study of “disease” has held the student fascinated for ages.
Health has received scant attention. Strange as it may appear, health has been considered of so little importance as to be unworthy of investigation. No schools ever existed for teaching health. Medical schools existed to train the student in a knowledge of disease and cures. Even today no school exists that has as its purpose the teaching of the conditions and requirements of health. The conditions of a healthy life are but little understood by the various healing professions and still less so by the general public. Health is not in the technically professional line of the physician.
In the care of the body we should have a standard of health and physical excellence to serve as a measuring rod to enable us to know when we are really at our best. This standard should be a high one. The present health standard is a false one. A true health standard should be the highest possible degree of healthy action in a perfect organism. Anything short of this is impaired health—“disease.” In this view, the highest action in the most perfect human organism of which we now know is a condition of “disease.” That is, mankind is sick, is far short of perfection, and those whom we call healthy are just a little less sick than those whom we call sick or, to put it more naturally, those whom we call sick are only a little less healthy than those we
call well.
Impaired health, or disease, is simply a lessened degree of the action of the organs of the body, taken as a whole, than is performed by these same organs in the highest state of health, together with such impairments of structure and function as flow naturally from depressed action.
Too many of us are content with a rather low standard of health—are quite well satisfied with the possession of so-called average health. Yet there was never a greater fallacy than the belief that what mankind is in the average represents what he should be in the ideal or the normal. As a consequence of our satisfaction with a mere modicum of health we are less than half alive. We pass through puny childhood and weakened adolescence to inefficient manhood and womanhood and premature senility or early death.
To combat the wide-spread degeneration of our race is a serious task and a vastly different matter from the usual patching up of a “diseased” body. Only radical and properly directed efforts will avail here. Unless a high standard of health is adopted we are not likely to seek to apply the methods the condition requires.
The physiologist, at least, should study health; but physiology is still regarded as a part of medicine and, as such, is subordinate to the needs of the physician at the bedside. Both physiology and anatomy are mere aids to the study of pathology and symptomatology. Instead of busying himself in efforts to establish biological norms and the bionomic factor? upon which these norms depend; the physiologist contents himself with determining mere statistical averages, as seen in overstimulated and diseased individuals living the un-biological life of our decadent civilization. Only comparatively recently have a few physiologists made any study of normals and, even yet, they are not clear about what these normals depend upon. The English physiologist, Haldane, avers that the “normals” are the “expression of what the organism is” and means by normal “not what is average, but what is normal in the biological sense.”
He insists that recent studies of the persistent and constant behaviour of the parts of the body in all important life-functions requires an entirely new interpretation of physiology and that, physiological and biological studies generally seem to make clear the existence and maintenance of an articulated or organized normal running throughout all the detail of physiological action and reaction and anatomical structure. He points out the almost incredible constancy in the composition of the blood. Similar constants or normals are seen in the maintenance of a uniform body temperature and, also, in respiration, nutrition, etc. He tells us that, except for these normals the actions and reactions of the cells would be chaotic and their structure
would be completely altered, if not destroyed. He approaches the orthopathic principle when he says that living organisms seek to meet all disturbances imposed upon them in such a way as to maintain the normal in essential points. In every direction we look we find normals “to which return is made with surprising persistence and accuracy.”
modern physiology has not established a single valid norm of structure, function or conduct. This is true because physiologists accept the prevailing low standards of physical and functional excellence and the low conditions of living upon which these rest, as the norms of existence. “Whatever is, is right” is the unexpressed rule of the physiologist, as well as of the biologist and anthropologist. The psychologist, following the same implied rule of interpretation, seeks to determine norms of behavior by statistical studies of what goes on around him in the unnatural world of society, with its neurotic and diseased populations. The norms of structure and function-normal size, normal weight, the normal heart, normal blood, normal blood pressure, normal heart function, normal urinary reaction, normal bowel movement, normal vision, normal childbirth, etc., etc.—are all arbitrarily or statistically established with no reference to their causes. The sexologist, in trying to establish norms of sexual behavior, studies sexual practices as these exist, but makes no effort to relate them to their causes. He merely accepts most, if not all of what is as normal. Without a yard-measure of normal developments each succeeding generation of physiologists stumbles into the same pitfalls.
Healthy Girlhood
The true normal is an expression of physical excellence, of integrity, of health and the study of normals becomes, to use Reinheimer’s words, “of almost inconceivable importance” “especially when duly expanded to comprise causes.” True health and fitness are complex results of fidelity to the greater aims of nature. It is by no means enough to “look well” and “feel well.” Physiological bankruptcy is not always apparent on the surface.
The normals may be viewed as an expression of the requirements of mutual service and accomodation of all the organs and systems in the body, but this should not permit us to lose sight of their wider correlations with external bionomic factors.
Instead of studying the healthiest, most vigorous, best developed specimens of the race, who live rationally, in an endeavor to establish physiological norms; physiologists have contented themselves with securing averages of conventionally
poor specimens who live abnormally. We have become accustomed to accepting the average of a group of overfed, undernourished, habitually over-stimulated, chronically poisoned men and women as normal and looking upon this as the ideal standard. If we approximate this so-called normal we are satisfied. Deductions made from a study of more or less diseased men and women, upon which all such studies are based, do not give the whole truth. Instead of seeking for and determining the bionomic factors upon which the biological norms depend, and bending their energies to right wrongs, when these norms have been departed from, by orthobionomic means, physicians stage a battle in the bodies of their patients between imaginary invading hosts and their drugs and serums.
Instead of studying the healthiest, most vigorous, best developed men and women of various heights, to determine ideal weights for these heights, we average up the undeveloped specimens that exist everywhere and accept these averages as the standards for the people of various degrees of shortness and tallness. One merely has to approximate the average for his or her height and he or she is considered normal, regardless of the nature of the flesh. A young lady of my acquaintance weighs approximately what is considered normal for her height. In street clothes she is very presentable, but when she dons a bathing suit, one discovers that she is greatly undeveloped. She carries a lot of flabby fat that makes up a large part of her weight. Millions of similar examples exist.
The consequences of such misdirected studies are far from desirable. The “normal” individual is a diseased being. The health standard set by the physiologist is very low. The standards for normal blood pressure are far too high. The standard for “normal urinary acidity” is wholly false. Normal human urine is alkaline in reaction. The person of “normal weight” may be so only because he has laid on enough fat on an otherwise underdeveloped body to meet the requirements of the prevailing vogue. A “normal childbirth” may be very painful, somewhat prolonged and result in lacerations. A “normally healthy” woman may suffer hemorrhage with each ovulation. The “normally sexed” individual may be comparatively a satyr or a nymphomaniac. Normal standards, representing the median or average and not the ideal or biological norm, are without true significance.
In the long run excellence and integrity alone can give values. Although physiologists and biologists speak learnedly about natural processes, they have rarely taken the trouble to distinguish between the maximum of healthful performance and a marked degree of impaired performance. Biologists, busying themselves with “struggle” and “survival,” have not thought it worth while to seek out the factors upon which maximum health depends and to determine the causes of impaired health.
Health is wholeness—integrity. The highest degree of health, that towards which we should all strive, depends upon the acme of integrity in all the organs of the body and vigorous performance of their functions; these, in turn, depend upon high bionomic factors. The biologist, like the physician and physiologist, having no standards of value, nor of health and impaired health, accepts anything and everything as normal so long as it is common enough. These things are, therefore they must be normal, does not misrepresent his philosophy. The evident degeneration of parasites is regarded as normal and the true character of parasitism is carefully concealed under the term “simplification.” We need a standard of physical excellence to serve as a measuring rod and enable us to know when we are at our best. This standard should be a high one, not one based on a lazy compliance with low conditions, or on mere expediency and fictitious adaptation.
In modern biology, with its Darwinian bent, the abnormal is taken for the normal; while, in the Darwinian theory, which forms the basis of this biology, there is scarcely any room for considerations of abnormality, or depravity, whether connected with physiology or with morals. It lacks all standard of values. To biology, the evolution of pathology and the restoration of health are mere matters of haphazard. There are various symptoms of disease which are so nearly universal in civilized life that ignorance calls them natural or normal. The very common fat-bloat and the vulgar habit of spitting are among these. Red cheeks, commonly regarded as a sign of health, are evidences of plethora and irritation and denote a predisposition to febrile “diseases.”
In the schools and in practice, the physician studies so much pathology that life becomes a disease. Pregnancy is a disease and childbirth a surgical operation. The fetus is a tumor. To the psychiatrist every man is suffering to a degree with sadism. The physician becomes obscured by his studies and is cut off from normal life. Actually so-called science does not even know wherein health and disease consist, and constantly mixes the two up indiscriminately. These—health and impaired health —must be accounted for in biological terms and so long as biologists prate about fitness without the slightest conception of the rationale of fitness, of what it consists and how it is achieved and preserved; so long as they invoke, somewhat metaphysically, “preservation,” which is totally inadequate to account for stability, permanence and success, they will never be able to separate the physiological from the pathological, or to tell where physiology ceases and pathology begins. Until this separation is made there can be no clarity of thought and no adequate appreciation of the range and significance of pathological processes.
Prof. Curtis speaks of the plethoric state in which “all is well,” as “that state of the system still called health; but often ‘high health,’” or “that degree of it at which we are said to be in danger of disease.” With a true understanding of the problems of “disease” the plethoric state would be recognized for what it is and not as a state of “high health.” The flushed or “ruddy” cheeks, surplus of fat and apparent vigor, resulting from overstimulation, seen in plethoric individuals, are no more signs of health than are pain and skin eruption. Instead of the plethoric individual being in a state of high health, he presents a very low or greatly impaired state of health.
Observe the faces and figures in any crowd you see; compare the cartoons and caricatures you see there—those of so-called average men and women—with the normal type of human beauty as given us in picture and statue and, rarely, in life, and you may become convinced that there is much wrong with this collection of miserable animals we call the human race. Our gods and goddesses are few. We expect beauty only in rare cases and all around beauty almost never. Symmetry is seldom met with and great strength is so rare as to be considered abnormal and dangerous. We have established a standard of weakness as the norm of nature—this, too despite our insistence upon “survival” and “struggle.” A few years ago two Indians here in Texas ran over a hundred miles in a stretch without fatigue or exhaustion. It is said of the Indian that he could start a deer in the morning and catch him before sun down of the same day. We are creatures built for speed—a free, swift, graceful animal—and the capacity for running mile after mile, hour after hour, as seen among savages, is as natural for man as for the deer. But in our decadence we are afraid of running.
The remarkable performances of athletes at the Olympic games and elsewhere show the marvelous capabilities of the human body when properly trained. They reveal the speed, strength and endurance of which the body is capable and demonstrate the existence of physical powers that are latent in the average person and that only need development. But our Olympic champions are puny weaklings whose records will be left far behind by the superior athletes of the future.
We should be a race of Apollos and Super-Venuses—every man, woman and child should be splendidly developed and symmetrically proportioned. We have fallen far below the standard of beauty and physical excellence that should be ours. I go to the theatre and view wonderously beautiful bodies of men and women—well and proportionately developed, lythe and graceful and full of the energies that throb and thrill with the sheer joy of living. I pick up a magazine, such as Physical Culture, and there are pictures of beautiful bodies. I go to the art museum and there in marble and bronze are sculptured likenesses of some beautiful model. In all of these I see
men and women as they should be and can be.
Then I go out on the street and observe the passing show. What do I see? Caricatures of men and women—flat chests, stooped or rounded shoulders, curved spines, bowed legs, blotched complexions, roughened skins, dull eyes, bald heads, false and decayed teeth, fat men, skinny women, puny, energyless specimens of defective development and decay. All of these miserable imitations of men and women are trying to hide their shame behind the arts of the dress maker and cosmetician. What a contrast between these and the beautiful specimens of animal life seen in forest and plain! Among wild animals generally, there exists a high standard of physiological excellence and physical beauty. There are exceptions to this, as will be shown later, but these exceptions teach a much needed lesson.
If a hunter shoots a deer or a robin, he will find him to be a fair sample of the species. He does not exclaim: “What an ugly animal!” or “This must have been an invalid!” Man, too, with the most perfect and most complex organism in the whole organic world, should have the health and beauty that belong to right development. Prof. J. Arthur Thompson says: “Apart from man’s interference there is almost no disease in wild nature; throughout the animal world there is an exuberance of positive health.” With certain notable exceptions, this statement is literally true.
“An exuberance of positive health” should also characterize man; will characterize him as soon as he learns a few much needed lessons about living. The abounding vigor and exuberant health seen in the animal and vegetable kingdoms are not mere accidents; nor are they the result of a fortuitious concourse of favorable