"War produces good effects in rousing a people from sloth and self-indulgence, in producing a better physique in a limited number and in improving to some extent discipline and morale, But it brings in its train evils which far outlive the good, And the saddest part is that all which it may produce of good could quite well be attained "without war and without the evils EL it'entails," said Dr, J, L, H, Pater-1 son, Superintendent, of the Lester Chinese Hospital, in the course of a paper on "War: Its Effect on Health" presented at the weekly lecture meeting in the Foreign Y.M.C.A, on Tuesday evening, War, he said, could be taken as a wholesale upset of the normal stereotyped lines of life, Preparation for war was án attempt to level out the ruts of peace, and its aftermath was largely concerned with the labour of reforming these furrows, Normal physical health was mostly a question of food, exercise, Test and freedom from disease, To use a well-worn cliche, they all ate foo much. During the Great War, it was found that a regulated diminution of'food supplies was a real asset to a considerable part of the community, Most of his listeners could probably do very well on two good meals a day, In wartime, however, civilians should take as little exercise as possible, During and after the Great War one might have expected that there would be plenty of diet troubles in England, but the reverse was actually the case, "There were plenty of colonels round, but very few gouty ones,"
A Black Side Lest some of them should think he was trying to justify war in one of its phases, Dr, Paterson said that there was a very black side to the same question Wars had a bad habit ofyproving to be much longer than was originally expected, and preparation often proved to be very insufficient, The most and the best was demanded for the üghting units and munition workers, Then it was that the future began to be endangered so much, when mother and child began to suffer and when it might be, blockade and destruction brought aM too near the- grim tragedy of semi-starvation, Adults could go through an amazing amount of semi-starvation and kome out but little the worse, But With children, the lack of even a few months of proper food could never be made up for, and left ineradicable traces in—physiqi stunted growth and limited brain power, At their very—door-step they had evidence enough of what happened to the children of a country prepared for war and suddenly plunged into its vicious vicissitudes, To look at another aspect, that of the general effects on a people's energy, Here- again they had to admit that forcing a community out of the ruts of peace had its effects for good on a people's energy, If one could get rid of the vision of torn bodies and serried ranks of crosses one might say that war had its good side. for the men of a nation, Open air, constant exercise, freedom from the infections houses and crowds harboured, these came nearer to the conditions under which their bodies were meant to exist,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.