THE HARDY CHINAMAN.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 18, 7 March 1913, Page 7

THE HARDY CHINAMAN.

JOHN’S PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS. In a recent number of the "Popular Science Monthly,” Professor E. A. Foss dUscusscs some peculiar characteristics! of the Chinese race in its resistance to disease. That there must be a marked difference in the character of this race as compared wjith ours Is obvious enough, when we consider that out of ten children born , among us, three, normally the weakest three, will fail to grow up; out of ten children born in Ojjjiila about eight are doomed to die in infancy. The difference is due to the hardships that infant life meets with among the Chinese, and it. need* hardly be pointed! out that with such ■ rigorous selection there will necessarily result a stock displaying a peculiar hardihood. Just what kind of a hardihood depends on the particular conditions of selection,, as Professor Ross brings out clearly in his article. To , anticipate his conclusion, the fact is that ’while the Chinese resist certain diseases with remarkable power, other diseases are more fatal to them than to us. Professor Ross collected his data by questioning a number of physicians who had practiced for a number of years in China. INDIFFERENT TO DISEASE. Where the constitution of the Chinaman excels is in the. extraordinary power to resist septic' infection. Some of the instances cited to illustrate ‘ this fact are almost incredible and are too gruesome to invite repetition. Amazing, also ,1b their response to the treatment of neglected wounds.

Living in the super-saturated, | manstifled land, profoundly ignorant of the principles of hygiene, the masses have developed an immunity to noxious microbes which excites the "wonder and envy of the foreigner. They are not affected by a mosquito bite that will raise, a. large lump on the newly-arrived foreigner. They can use contaminated water from canals without incurring dysentery. There is very little typhoid, and what there.is is so attenuated that it was long doubted to be typhoid. All physicians agree that . among the Chinese smallpox is a mild disease. The chief of the army medical staff points out that during, the autumn manoeuvres • the soldiers sleep on d'amp ground with a little straw under them without any ill effects. Coolies, after two hours of burdenbearing at a dog trot, wiU shovel themselves full of £»t rice with scarcely any mastication, and hurry on. for another.two hours. A white man would have writhed with indigestion. The Chinese seem able to sleep in any position. I have seen them sleeping on piles of bricks, or stones, or polesi, with a block or a brick for a pillow and, with the hot sun shining full into the face.

THE PRICE OF NEGLECT. But' there is another side to,the comparison. There is little pneumonia among the Chinese, but they stand it no better than we do, some say not so well. There is much malarial fever, and it goes hard with them. In Hong Kong they seem to succumb to the plague more readily than the foreigners. Among children! there 'is heavy • mortality from measles and searlet fever. In withstanding tuberculosis 1 they have no advantage oven us. Whilq • they make wonderful recoveries from high fevers they are not enduring of long fevers. Some think this is because the flame of their vitality has been turned low by unsanitary living.

They have a horror of fresh air, and shut it out 0 f the sleeping apart-' ment, even on a warm night. * .In the missloii schools, if the teachers insist on open windows in, the dormitory, the pupils stifle under the covers lest the evil spirits flying about at night should get at them. Prom this testimony it is safe to conclude that at least a part of the observed toughness lof the Chinese is attributable to a special race vitality which they have acquired in the course of a longer and severer elimination of the less fit than our North-Huropean ancestors ever experienced in their civilised state. Such selection has tended . to foster nob so much bodily strength or energy as recuperative power, resistance to infection and tolerance of unwholesome condition.* of living.