THE EFFECTS OF CIVILISATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21912, 22 September 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE EFFECTS OF CIVILISATION

Cult o£ Comfort Glorified in Defiance of Nature By SIR LOUIS BARNETT, Emeritus Professor of Surgery, University of Otago [The concluding article of a series published under the auspices of the Sunlight League]

Most of us agree that health and happiness are interdependent, though we all know people who seem really to enjoy had health, iust as we all know wealthy people who seem to enjoy hoarding their money instead of spending it. Queer individuals of this kind are, however, the exceptions, and most of us realise that for true happiness we must not only have a healthy body and a healthy mind, but must manifest a loving kindness toward our fellow creatures.

and developed physically as a strong, hardy, active creature. Only within the last five or six thousand years, a comparatively brief span in the sojourn of man in this world of ours, has the new environment of so-called civilisation developed, with its cult of comfort, glorified above all else, and although man is a very adaptable thing, it is not to be expected that he can suffer with impunity the many radical and unwholesome alterations from his primeval habits and customs that this modern civilisation exacts. Adapted for Primitive Environment A study of anatomy and physiology shows what a marvellous piece of mechanism the human bodv is, and shows also that it is wonderfully adapted for that primitive environment I have described, and not well adapted for some at any rate of the conditions associated with civilisation. The skin, for example, is not meant by Nature to be covered over almost entirely with manifold garments and surrounded by air that is kept at a warm and even temperature. The skin is meant to be freely and often exposed to changes of temperature, and above all to the beneficent influence of sunshine, otherwise its normal heat regulating mechanism is embarrassed and its glandular action interfered with, resulting in lowered resistance to disease and deficient formation of valuable vitamins. There is no doubt that of late years countless numbers of people, especially young neople, have been benefited in health 7ind vigour by the wearing of more open clothing, and less of it, and by the sensible vogue of the open air life and sea and sun bathing. Evils of Pulpy Foods A»gain, good teeth made of durable materials are normally handed down by parents to their offspring if these parents themselves live a healthy, natural life, and these teeth can only be kept disease-resisting if they are given plenty of hard work to do in tho way of mastication, and not habitually clogged with the modern pj.ilpv foods and sticky sweets. That wav leads to dental caries, and the best way to avoid this infliction is by a return toward the primeval and more natural dietary. The toothbrush is of supplementary value no doubt, and indeed essential under modern conditions of feeding. The same sort of idea regarding the errors of civilisation may be applied to other digestive organs like the stomach, the liver and the bowels. Our food should be simpler and should not be swallowed very hot. Much of it indeed should be uncooked and it should be earned by an adequate amount of muscular exercise. In our food customs we have broken away from the age-long traditions of our remote forbears and we suffer accordingly. There is 110 need to labour my point further. Clearly we have made mistakes in our efforts tc adapt ourselves to civilisation's cult of comfort. We have been living, and most of us still are living, a sheltered and coddled existence with not enough fresh air and sunshine, swaddled in too many clothes, eating unwisely, and not taking enough exercise. Afjter much tribulation we are learning wisdom and realising the importance to healthfulness of a more natural life. More power to the Sunlight League in its devoted efforts to spread this gospel of health and happiness among the community, for of all gifts that a Divine Providence has bestowed upon us, the greatest of these is sunshine.

All living creatures have implanted in them at the moment of conception, in the very genes of the nucleus of the fertilised ovum, an amazing assortment of instincts, tendencies, urges, habits, call them what you will, inherited from their male and female parents and more remote ancestors. Thus arises what we call the nature of an individual, his body and constitution, his mind and behaviour.

ISo two individuals, not even twins, are born exactly alike in these respects. There are differences in varying degrees, including differences in adaptability to a changing environment. What we call environment includes the surroundings or setting in which an individual lives,

his nurture or upbringing, his domestic and social relationships, his food, clothing, occupation, his pleasures and bis hardships, the climate of his home country, and so on, and all these things influence man's nature and influence it differently in different individuals. Hence arises progress on the one hand and degeneration on the other, and too often, alas, envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness. ' Evolution of Man

Scientists who have studied the story of. the human race, from its verv origins, agree in thinking that the earliest type of human being was in existence as far back as a million years ago, and that he inhabited probably certain parts of South and Central Asia. Judging from such meagre evidence as exists, he was not a handsome person, this prehistoric ancestor of ours, but he was gifted with a better brain than other living creatures, and so rose to supremacy in the animal world. Man multiplied, social difficulties and conflicts arose, and migrations took place on an ever-.widening scale to other parts of the world, with consequent changes in human stature and colour, intelligence and behaviour. Now it is well to remember that for the greater part of this million years we were savages with bodies more or less unclad and exposed to the sun and winds, the heat and the cold, hunting for food, much of which was eaten raw, and fighting for existence. Man became adapted by nature to these conditions.