My old friend, Dr. Adrian Gibbs, has just returned from a fishing party in the wilds of the mountainous part of the state.
“There is a great deal of loose talk about modern life being destructive to health,” he says, “that in our cities, with houses and steam heat and nerve racking pace, etc., we are far less healthy than the primitive children of nature.
“My observation on all of this is that it’s the bunk. There are very few features of the most civilized part of modern life that don’t tend to prolong life and conserve health. The first night out on this fishing trip nearly broke down all the stores of health that I have accumulated in civilized surroundings for several years. I stumbled around over rocks and gravel, nearly ruined my feet and sprained my ankle. One night I was so cold and melancholy that I acquired rheumatism, spiritualism and socialism.
LIFE INDUCES DISEASES
“The kind of food that primitive man eats and the way he takes care of the skin of his body, or at least the way he doesn’t take care of the skin of his body, conduces to skin infections, boils, furuncles, and discomfort generally.
“So far as the mental state is concerned, if anybody thinks it more nerve racking to try to dodge motor cars than it is to sit in the dark around a camp fire and hear an animal walking around in the bushes about three yards away, he just should try the latter for a few hours. The animal turned out to be nothing more than a domestic hog, but before I found that out I imagined everything from a sabre-toothed tiger, down.
“It is my opinion that the primitive child of nature living in most so-called hygienic surroundings, ached all the time, was uncomfortable three-quarters of the time, never had any fun at all, and was subject to every mental disease known.”