The Sickness Of France.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 19, 1913:
    The statements and the figures cited by ex-Premier Ribot and M. Bourgeois, quoted in our Paris dispatches yesterday, as to the relative physical decline of the population of France, are certainly disquieting. A high death rate, a low birth rate, the excessive prevalence of disease that can be diminished, if not prevented, and a Government comparatively indifferent to its prime duties, these are not what we would expect in a nation of such intelligence as the French.
    Some of the causes of this unfortunate state of things are remote and obscure. Others are plain enough. The low birth rate is in great part accounted for by the compulsory division of property, but not entirely, since the rate is not materially higher in the well-to-do classes, while it is higher than the average among the peasants of certain regions. Alcoholism appears to be on the increase, and to tend toward the use of the stronger liquors, especially absinthe and the cheaper brandies. But the worst evil is tuberculosis, of which the percentage is more than twice that of Germany and England. Nor is this due to crowding in cities, since the urban population is notably smaller than in England and not greater than that of Germany.
    Doubtless much could be done by the Government which is not done, and for this M. Bourgeois holds excessive partisan politics to blame. The Deputies are too much engrossed in the contentions of the numerous groups, and in the patronage which is the chief object of these contentions, to give attention to hygienic reforms. But it cannot be denied that the Deputies represent, negatively at least, the public opinion and temper which would be respected if it were really earnest, it is toward the education and arousing of the public that the Congress of Social Hygiene, at which these topics were discussed, is directed.