THE "HEALTH RATE" OF A NATION

Among the many lessons that the war has helped to teach, few have been more significant than the demonstration of the unexpectedly large number of persons who, from a military standpoint, are physically unfit. The more progressive nations have for some years devoted much consideration to the problems of national vitality, and sanitary science as well as practical hygiene has gained a more prominent place in the estimation and the budgets of enlightened communities. Perhaps, however, Arthur Keith was right in saying that the mistake which we have been making is that of keeping our eye too exclusively on the birth rate and death rate and neglecting what he cleverly designates the "health rate." ¹ Without doubt the young men of the English-speaking nations, at least, have been shown by the elaborate physical examinations, undertaken as a part of the military arrangements of the respective countries, to be far below