Professor Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University indicts civilization for a new offense. Through "too much pampering and hospitalization" it is weakening the human race and unfitting it for longevity. Many flies, the professor finds, live longer than man.

Instead of seeking for an analogy in flies, why did he not look for it among the "weaklings" of the armies engaged in the great war? Has so large a proportion of the human race ever before had to endure so much hardship or exhibited an equal capacity for endurance? Did the soldiers of Alexander or Caesar have to meet anything like the rigors of trench warfare? If the robust health of the American Expeditionary Force is a measure of the effects of pampering and hospitalization, the human race might profit from a more general application of such debilitating influences.

But as a matter of fact, does vitality bear any direct relation to physical vigor? Medical science has not yet furnished a sure prescription for longevity, and centenarians are not necessarily persons distinguished for muscular development in their youth. Coddling the human race in such manner as to "keep alive the weaklings much longer than they would live normally" may, after all, be the best means of increasing the general duration of life. New York World.