THE CULT OF COMFORT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22329, 1 August 1934, Page 4

THE CULT OF COMFORT

NATURE’S INTENTIONS AND CIVILISATION’S ERRORS By Sir Louis Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Surgery, University of Otago. (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 bad health, just 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 onlyhave a healthy body and a healthy mind, but must manifest a loving kindness towards our fellow-creatures. 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, Ins body and constitution, his mind and behaviour. No two individuals, not even twins, are born exactly alike in these respects. There arc differences in varying degrees, including differences in adaptability to a changing environment.

What we cajl environment includes the surroundings or setting in which an individual lives, his nurture or upbringing, his domestic and social relationships, Ins food, clothing, occupation, his pleasures, and his hardships, the climate of his homecountry, and so on; and all these things influence man's nature and influence it differently in different individuals. Hence arise progress on the one hand and degeneration on the other, and too often—alas —envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.

Scientists who have studied the story of the human race from its very origins agree in thinking that the earliest type of human being was in existence as far back as 1,000,000 years ago, and that he inhabited probably certain parts of South and Centnrt Asia. Judging from, such meagre evidence .as exists, he was not a handsome person, this prehistoric ancestor of ours, but he was pifted 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 these 1,000,000 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, and developed physically as a strong, hardy, active creature. Only within the last 6000 or 6000 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 being, 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.

A study of anatomy and physiology shows what a marvellous piece of mechanism, the human body 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 people, have been benefited in health and vigour by the wearing of more open clothing, and less of it, and by the sensible vogue of the open air life and of sea and sun bathing. Again, good teeth made of durable materials are normally handed down by parent* to their offspring, if these parents themselves live a healthy, natural life, and these teeth can only be kept diseaseresisting if they are given plenty of hard work to do in the way of mastication and not habitually dogged with the modern pulpy foods and sticky sweets. That way leads to dental caries, and the best way to avoid this infliction is by a return towards the primeval and more natural dietary. The toothbrush is of supplementary value, no doubt, and, indeed, essential under modern conditions of leading. 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 qf it, indeed, should be uncooked, and it should be earned by an adequate amount of muscu'ar exercise. In our food customs we have broken away from the age-long traditions of our remote forbears, and we suffer accoi'dingly. There is no need to labour my point further. Clearly we have made mistakes in our efforts to adapt ourselves to civilisation’s cult of comfort. We have been living, and most of ua still are living, a sheltered and coddled existence with not enough fresh air and sunshine, swaddled in too many clothes, eating unwisely, and pot taking enough exercise. After much tribulation we are learning wisdom and realising the importance and the healthfulness of a more natural life.

More power to the Sunlight League in its devoted efforts to spread this gospel of health and happiness amongst the community, for of all gifts that a Divine Providence has bestowed upon us the greatest of these is sunshine!