Henry N. Ogden

“ Until the discovery by Robert Koch, in 1882, of the germ causing consumption, little could be done in the way of prevention, but since that time, only one quarter of a century ago, we have learned and applied the knowledge that, in the vast majority of cases, the disease is spread by the sputum of consumptive patients, which becomes dry, forms dust, and so is carried into the air to be breathed by persons not otherwise affected. It seems so simple a method, then, to prevent the spread of consumption. ”

“ So far as the real welfare of a community is concerned, the standard should be that of the efficiency of the lives in the different age periods rather than the length of those periods. By efficiency in such a connection is meant not merely a life that is free enough from disease to permit the full number of working days in the year, and the full number of years in the man's life usually devoted to toil, or all together a life that contributes something of value to the world, whether produce from the farm or books evolved from the brain ”

“ It is, in fact, rather remarkable to find that in large cities, business men whose digestions have been ruined are devoting themselves to unlimited quantities of buttermilk in the hope that their former excesses and absurdities in the way of food may be counteracted and health restored.
Between these two extremes—the use of milk for the very young and for the aged and infirm—milk plays an important part as food. The consumption of milk in New York State, according to statistics, amounts to about a pint a day for each person for that part of the country. ”

“ From many standpoints sleep is the most wonderful attribute of the human body. Our familiarity, from our earliest years, with sleep, closes our eyes to its strange, its awful power. We know that every human being, once in twenty-four hours, will normally close his eyes and for a certain length of time be as oblivious to things present as if already in the sleep of death. It is a common belief that sleep is nature's provision for restoring tired muscles and jaded nerves, and for building up new tissue in cell [Pg 293] and corpuscle. ”

“ Most of us, at one time or another, have had, unknowingly, mild cases of consumption. It would be strange, indeed, if we did not, in view of all the tuberculous infection flying around in the air. But most of us are able to successfully combat the disease, so that the germs are destroyed before they are able to affect the entire body.
The other part of prevention consists in building up and holding up the vitality of the individual to a point where the vital forces can successfully oppose the attacks of the germs. ”

“ The poorer a family, the greater struggle it is to keep up the appearance of cleanliness, and no surer sign of rapid progress on a downhill road can be found than neglect of those practices which tend toward personal neatness. As the life of the farmer, then, becomes easier, as his condition becomes more prosperous, and as his family make more requirements, so, inevitably, is there in the farmhouse a greater demand for water in the kitchen, in the laundry, and in the bath-room. ”

“ Very few houses have any provision for the outlet of spent air, and if ventilation is thought of at all, the only idea usually is to provide, in part at least, for the admission of air and to make no adequate arrangement for its egress. Whenever a stove or fire-place is in use, the mere burning of fuel requires the consumption of air, and in cases where apparently no air is admitted to the room, insensible ventilation is at work bringing into the room, through the walls and through cracks around the doors and windows, the necessary air for combustion. ”

“ In a little book by Hough and Sedgwick entitled "The Human Mechanism," the authors point out that in many respects the human body is like any machine developing energy by the conversion of certain kinds of raw material. Thus, as the steam engine will use up coal in the development of mechanical energy, so the human body will absorb food and convert it into vital energy, and it is quite as important that the human body shall have its source of energy properly adjusted to its needs as that the steam engine shall be fired with coal possessing a reasonable amount of heat-producing particles. ”

“ Disease may be defined as an abnormal condition of the human body, and since there is no one condition of the human body which can be satisfactorily described as normal, there is, therefore, no exact definition of disease. ”

“ No possible connection can be traced between the dissemination of the poison through the system by the action of the bacteria and the appearance of the skin, which is a minor factor in the disease. It may be worth while to repeat that the greatest danger from measles consists in the possibility of lung complications, and infinite care should be taken to keep the patient shielded from drafts and free from overexertion until recovery is complete. Like scarlet fever, the skin peels off, although not to the same extent, and the small particles are capable of transmitting the disease. ”

“ By far the most important of the living agencies concerned with the direct production of disease are those small vegetable organisms known as bacteria. Not all bacteria, by any means, produce disease; in fact, it is not too much to say that the majority of bacteria are benefactors to the human race. Their chief agency is not to cause disease, but to prevent it, and they do this because they are able to transform the waste products of animal life, which would normally be dangerous to health, into harmless mineral residue. ”

“ It is much to be regretted that, in these days of scientific knowledge, when the exact and fundamental causes and processes of diseases are so clearly known to medical men and when laws based on this knowledge have been enacted for the purpose of reducing mortality and preventing the spread of disease, ignorant individuals should allow their prejudices to stand in the way of compliance with the spirit of these laws. ”

“ By a series of most interesting experiments, conducted by them and by other scientists in other parts of the world, it has been definitely proved that when a mosquito bites an individual suffering from malaria, the mosquito draws up into his body, along with the blood of the bitten person, some of the malarial parasites. In the body of the mosquito, the parasite develops, requiring for a full-grown specimen about seven days; then, if the mosquito bites another person, the parasite is injected into the skin of the victim, and in the course of about a week a good case of malaria ensues. ”

“ But the tendency nowadays is to build better houses, to cover the walls with paper, to put on double windows, and even to paste up the cracks to make the room as air-tight as possible. To sleep in such a room without a window open may not be committing suicide, but it is a deliberate method of reducing the vitality, of insuring a headache or a numbed and stupid mental condition, and of loading up the system with poisons which ought to be eliminated by the oxygen which fresh air supplies. ”

“ It is through the agency of bacteria that the air, which is being continually overloaded with carbonic acid from the lungs of animals, is reduced and taken up by plants so that an equilibrium is maintained. Otherwise, the atmosphere would be more and more vitiated with carbonic acid and organic vapors, and every one would die as if shut up in an air-tight room. But, because of bacteria, neither is the surface of the earth overloaded with waste organic matter nor do streams, however much polluted, continue to flow without some improvement being traced in their quality. ”

“ But the serious aspect of inadequate ventilation is not that it actually induces death, but that it decreases the powers and activities of the various organs of the body; that it interferes with their normal processes, that it loads up in the body an accumulation of organic matter which is normally oxidized by fresh air and which, if not oxidized, obstructs the activities of other organs of the body. ”

“ No principle of hygiene is better established than that men undergoing hard physical exercise need and will take care of a larger amount of coarse food than those occupied in sedentary work. In cold weather what is required is not really more fat as food, but more food. It has been found that there is a limit to the amount of meat food which the body can absorb, and, further, that the excess is not [Pg 263] easily disposed of, as with starchy food, and tends to load up the liver and other organs with the waste products, resulting in general disturbances of the whole body. ”

“ Experiments have shown that the agencies to which certain diseases are attributed, commonly known as pathogenic bacteria, are frequently, if not always, found in sewage, and that when these bacteria are discharged into streams they may be carried with the stream hundreds of miles and retain all their power for evil, in case the water is used for drinking purposes. No right-minded person to-day will so abuse the rights of his fellow-citizens as deliberately to pour into a stream such unmistakable poison as sewage has proved itself to be. ”

“ No idea is more false than that a small amount of alcohol aids in the performance of work of any sort, and experience in the army, navy, and in exploring expeditions all go to show that the use of alcohol in any form reduces the capacity, both for activity and endurance. As a protection against cold, it is worse than useless, and the feeling of warmth which drinking alcohol in any form produces, does not [Pg 275] manufacture heat in the body, but is rather a source of danger on account of the reaction of the whole system. ”

“ If, for example, a member of a family has diphtheria or smallpox, and such a child is isolated so that no danger of the spread of the disease exists, the state would not, in general, insist upon the use of any preventive or curative inoculation; but if a child with incipient diphtheria or whooping cough goes to school where other children may be infected and the disease spread, the state, acting through its Board of Education, would have a perfect right to send the child home and prevent its enjoying school privileges until recovery from the disease. ”

“ No development of recent times has tended more toward the improvement and greater comfort of house building than the use of concrete. In the earlier houses, the cellar walls were so badly built and the connection between the top of the cellar wall and the timber sill of the house was so poor that the winter's wind blew through above to the manifest discomfort of those in the house. The writer remembers sitting in the best room of a well-to-do farmer, and watching, with great interest, the carpet rise and fall with the gusts of wind outside. ”

“ It rarely happens that a health officer of a country community concerns himself with seeing that a case of scarlet fever, for example, is prevented from spreading by a thorough disinfection of the rooms. That seems to be left to the good sense of the individual. It is hardly conceivable that a mother with three or four children (when one child has been sick with a contagious disease) will neglect ordinary and reasonable precautions to prevent the spread of that disease to the rest of the family. ”

“ The great disadvantage which milk sustains as an article of food is that the same composition that makes it so useful as a diet for man, also renders it a most admirable culture medium for the rapid development of all kinds of bacteria. ”

“ One of the sad facts in connection with those unfortunates whose fight against tuberculosis is nearly over and who in desperation have fled to Arizona, hoping that the dry air might afford relief, is that the lack of nourishing food, inevitable in those deserts, hastens on the disease, so that the expected benefits from the dry air are entirely offset. Likewise, in tenement-house districts in cities, the fight against consumption is practically useless because of the impossibility of securing for those starved or underfed helpless ones the nourishing food necessary. ”

“ One cannot deny that this costs money, both because of the pipe line necessary to bring the water to the house and because of the plumbing fixtures required in the house. Again, a water-supply in the house involves a well-heated house, since pipes not kept warm will, in the winter, inevitably freeze, ruining the pipe line and perhaps the ceilings and walls of the house itself. But if the owner of a house has any money to expend in improvements, surely no better way of adding to the comfort and health of his family can be found. ”

“ Perhaps one reason why the disease has been supposed to result from exposure is the undoubted fact that it is chiefly prevalent in the winter and spring rather than in the summer. This argument is, however, modified by the fact that the majority of cases do not occur in January or February when the temperature is lowest, but in March, when the opening of spring is in sight. The reason for this is evident when we remember that the cause of the disease is a germ, generally present in the body and needing only a reduced vitality for its successful inroad on the human system. ”

“ The difficulty, even with this great care, of freeing their hands from bacteria has been found to be so great that, in late years, surgeons have preferred to use, during operations, thin rubber gloves which can be boiled before using and can be soaked in a stronger antiseptic than the hands could bear.
It is extraordinary, from the standpoint of self-infection, to see how men can be so careless as to sit down to dinner, after having worked in places where their hands have come in contact with all sorts of organic filth, without stopping to wash those hands even in cold water. ”

“ There are two points to be noted in an animal about to be killed, namely, whether the animal is healthy, that is, free from disease,—and whether it is in proper condition, neither too young nor too old, is well-grown and well-nourished. Among the diseases to which animals are subject, some are objectionable because of the possibility of the direct transmission of their disease to those eating the flesh, while others are objectionable because the flesh is spoiled and so causes irritation in the stomach and intestines of those eating it. ”

“ After meals, violent exercise is not desirable because thereby vitality is taken away from the muscles of the stomach and intestines and is used up in the other muscles; but it is vigorous exercise after heavy meals only that is condemned, since moderate exercise after ordinary meals is not objectionable. Nor is there any evidence, unless the meal has been excessive, that mental exercise after a meal does any harm. The amount of mental tissue used up in the ordinary processes of mental work is not great enough to call for any large diminution of the supply of blood to other parts of the body. ”