Periodic Health Examination
In an address delivered before a meeting of members of the Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors on October 20, 1921, Dr. A. S. Knight made the statement that the mortality of a special group of 5987 men who had taken voluntary medical examinations regularly seven years under the direc¬tion of one company had been only fifty-three per cent, of the rate expected on standard insurance tables.
Thus the company, in defraying the expenses of the tests for its policy holders, had its principal returned and made on the invest- ment, through reduced insurance claims, a profit of two hundred per cent. It is reasonable to assume that these men, while enjoying greater freedom from disease, also were more efficient and enjoyed the feeling of increased general well-being and more freedom from loss of income through illness, in fact capacity for greater income.
But we are not as yet educated to the point of regular health examinations. Nor are we educated in the art of healthful living.
It is with the desire to help those with an honest and earnest wish to help themselves, to preserve health and ex¬perience the satisfactory feeling of abundant energy and vitality and to hold in check or quickly reduce signs and symp¬toms of developing trouble and its underlying causes, that these -volumes have been prepared with a great deal of thought
and attention to detail.
It is not healthful to dwell upon sickness and disease. This applies to the diseases one does not have as well as to those one has. Hence works on disease and treatment should be used as reference only, and as reference regarding only those diseases and abnormal conditions in which one is directly interested because of being afflicted with them. Even then the symptoms should be dwelt upon as little as possible, the chief attention being given to the treatment.
Attention should be given to the causes also; for if one understands the theory of disease and of cure according to the physical culture or nature cure beliefs, the battle should be half won when the causes are understood—provided, of course, one goes to work to remove the causes. The chief One should thoroughly digest this material, for upon it is based the natural treatment of disease. It is the treatment from which physical benefits will be derived and which makes these volumes of such tremendous value to those who are subnormal in health.