Hand Book of Health

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ITS MISSION

As indicated in the prospectus, its mission is to contribute to the improvement of mankind physically, mentally, and morally. Of the necessity for reform in these particulars, we need not speak; for the alarming evidences of physical degeneracy and disease, mental inefficiency, and moral turpitude, which we see about us on every hand, speak more loudly than can words of the crying need of immediate and thorough reformation. HBH 7a.2

Progression is the spirit of the times. Social reform, prison reform, civil service reform, and various other reforms, each in its turn, calls for the careful and candid consideration and hearty co-operation of every intelligent man and woman. And very just and appropriate is this demand; for nothing can be more promotive of the interests of society than improvement-progression-reform. Without this, stagnation would result, and civilization would soon degenerate into the veriest barbarism. Its value, then, cannot be overestimated; and every truly reformatory movement should receive our most serious and attentive consideration. HBH 7a.3

As its name would suggest, the Health Reformer is published in the interest of a reformation which has a special bearing upon health; health-physical, mental, and moral. Perfect physical development, clear mental faculties, and acute moral sensibilities, constitute the perfection of manhood or womanhood. Can there be anything more important, then, than a reform which aims to secure these three conditions, which, when attained, will place a person in that state of perfection which will enable him to realize the highest degree of enjoyment possible for man to experience? May we not justly claim that, while the reforms which have been mentioned are of great moment and absorbing interest, they are all eclipsed by the far greater importance of this reform which deals with those principles which underlie the whole superstructure of moral and social life, and which strike at the very root of all the evils which curse society, and rest like a mighty incubus upon the world? HBH 7a.4