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G. L. F.

JAMA. 1970;212(5):874-875.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Man's proudest boast is that, unlike the beasts, he has a soul. He is safe from contradiction by his animal acquaintances (1) because they do not communicate with him, and (2) because they are subjected to his mastery, not knowing how to make gunpowder.

A delicately irrational, if somewhat delightful, outcome of this relationship is that man may not accuse the soulless animal of pollution. The animal excretes, and may soil the ground, but his biological automatism disbars these as acts of pollution. Not so with homo sapiens. Neglect of his wastes is pollution. Wilful dumping of garbage, unsanitary deposition of feces, and reckless burning of refuse are only one side of the problem. The pendulum of pollution now includes his inadvertent castoffs as pollutants. The pendulum never stops swinging, and its lissajous figures describe noise, dust, cyclamates, smokes, gasoline vapors, engine exhausts, enzymes in soaps, ragweed pollen, leaded paints, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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