[Illustration: NEW YORK CITY'S TUBERCULOSIS SANATORIUM AT OTISVILLE IS SENDING HOME APOSTLES OF SEMI-ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS]
[Illustration: BOSTON'S PICTURESQUE DAY CAMP FOR TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS IS TEACHING THE NEED FOR A PERIODIC INVENTORY OF PHYSICAL RESOURCES]
To encourage periodic physical examination is not to encourage morbid thinking of disease. One reason for our tardiness in recognizing the need for thorough physical examination is the doctor's tradition of treating symptoms. After men and women are intelligent enough to demand an inventory of their physical resources,--a balance sheet of their physical assets and liabilities,--physicians will study the whole man and not the fraction of a man in which they happen to be specializing or about which the patient worries. By removing the mystery of bodily ailments and by familiarizing ourselves with the essentials to healthy living, we find protection against charlatans, quacks, faddists, and experimenters. By taking a periodic inventory of our physical resources we discharge a sacred obligation of citizenship.
[11] See _Dangerous Trades_, compiled by Thomas Oliver; also list of reports by the United States Bureau of Labor.
HABITS OF HEALTH PROMOTE INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY
Education's highest aim is to train us to do the right thing at the right moment without having to think. The technic of musician, stenographer, artist, electrician, surgeon, orator, is gained only from patient training of the body's reflex muscles to do brain work.[12] The lower nerve centers are storehouses for the brain energy, just as central power houses are used for storing electric energy to be spent upon demand. From habit, not from mental effort, we turn to the right, say "I beg pardon" when we step on another's foot, give our seats to ladies or to elderly persons, use acceptable table manners. No person seems "to the manner born" who has to think out each act necessary to "company manners." How numerous are the mental and physical processes essential to good manners no one ever recognizes but the very bashful or the uncouth person trying to cultivate habits of unconsciousness in polite society. The habit of living ethically enables us to go through life without being tempted to steal or lie or do physical violence. No person's morals can be relied upon who is tempted constantly to do immoral acts; ethical training seeks to incapacitate us for committing unethical deeds and to habituate us to ethical acts alone.