100 Years Ago

摘要

Satisfied with the maintenance of a specious standard of chemical purity, the public has acquiesced in the elevation of sky-scrapers and the sinking cavernous places of business. Many have thus become cave-dwellers, confined for most of their waking and sleeping hours in windless places, artificially lit, monotonously warmed. The sun is cut off by the shadow of tall buildings and by smoke - the sun, the energiser of the world, the giver of all things which bring joy to the heart of man, the fitting object of worship of our forefathers... Modern civilisation has withdrawn many of us from the struggle with the rigours of nature... I maintain that the bracing effect of cold is of supreme importance to health and happiness, that we become soft and flabby and less resistant to the attacks of infecting bacteria in the winter, not because of the cold, but because of our excessive precautions to preserve ourselves from cold.