Hygiene

“ Race hygiene or eugenics, which has been mentioned as the third and most important branch of hygiene, aims to conserve the health of future generations, through the action of those now living. Hygiene (individual and public) teaches us how to create for ourselves healthful conditions of living, but on every side we see evidences of the fact that we cannot entirely control conditions of health through hygiene only. Not all maladies by any means can be attributed to unnatural or unhygienic conditions of living. ”

“ Supremacy of Hygiene.—Taking the results of sectional discussions as a whole, it was very generally shown that, by our increasing knowledge of hygienic law, its wide diffusion amongst the people, and its intelligent application to daily life, we can counteract the evil influence of heredity, get rid of epidemics, improve the stamina of the race, advance in longevity and in the natural enjoyment of our earthly span of life. Thus it is by the advance of sanitation that the Art of Healing can alone become a science of Medicine. ”

“ As stated in the introduction to our study, the fundamental law of hygiene is the law of harmony: Habits of living must harmonize with the plan of the body. Having acquainted ourselves with the plan of the body, we may now review briefly those conditions that help or hinder its various activities. The hygiene already presented in connection with the study of the various organs may be condensed into general rules, or laws, as follows:
1. Of exercise: Exercise daily the important groups of muscles. ”

“ An effort has been made to include only that part of hygiene pertaining to our science. Since sanitation pertains especially to the environment, the approach to its study is the same regardless of the viewpoint from which it is considered. ”

“ Public Hygiene deals with the methods and processes necessary to preserve and promote the health interests of the public. It deals with man collectively rather than individually. This includes consideration of the environment, such as cleaning of streets, disposal of the dead, and proper hygienic methods in buildings and in public places. ”

“ In order to determine what things and conditions are in harmony with the plan of the body, we must know what that plan is. This knowledge is obtained through a study of anatomy and physiology. The knowledge gained through these subjects also renders the study of hygiene more interesting and valuable. One is enabled to see why and how obedience to hygienic laws benefits, and disobedience to them injures, the body. This causes the teachings of hygiene to be taken more seriously and renders them more practical. ”

“ Controlling all the activities of the body and affecting through its own condition the welfare of all the organs, the hygiene of the nervous system is, in a large measure, the hygiene of the entire body. ”

“ Still more important is the relation of physiology to the national health. The commonplaces of hygiene which are now, one may be thankful to say, taught, if not practiced, in almost every schoolroom and factory in England, are the direct results of the abstruse researches of Boyle and Priestley, of Lavoisier and Pasteur. Ages of experience did not teach mankind the value of fresh air, or the innocence of clean water. ”

“ It is chiefly useful in preventing acute or infectious diseases, such as typhoid fever, scarlet fever, measles, whooping-cough, small-pox, yellow fever, and diphtheria, and in preventing accidents and occupational diseases. Individual hygiene is chiefly useful in preventing the chronic or degenerative diseases, that is, diseases of nutrition and of circulation, such as heart and kidney affections, nervous prostration, insanity. ”

“ Hygiene, or the science of health, has a widely extended field of labor in laying a scientific foundation for our sanitary regimen. Even if in many cases it only shows that all is not as it has heretofore been supposed to be, that has its great practical value. ”

“ Another point might then also have become clear: the whole tendency of medicine is towards a recognition of the predominance of Hygiene. The modern aim is to prevent disease. The whole national system of medicine is being slowly though steadily built up in recognition of the great fact that the interests of Health come before the interests of Disease. ”

“ Medically the aim and function of hygiene is to increase the internal resistance of the individual and thus prevent dis-ease and prolong life. The aim and function of sanitation or sanitary science is to improve the environmental conditions and thus prevent dis-ease and prolong life of the individual. ”

“ Every means of hygienic, intellectual, and religious influence should be used to direct and strengthen both mind and body. For both young men and young women it is hygiene in its largest sense that should be prescribed and enforced—viz., the guidance of the early vital forces, both physical and mental, into natural beneficial directions. ”

“ It is with all schools of medicine as it is with each individual practitioner of the healing art the less faith they have in medicine, the more they have in Hygiene; hence those who prescribe little or no medicine, are invariably and necessarily more attentive to Hygiene, which always was, and ever will be, all that there is really good, useful, or curative in medication. ”

“ Hygiene is, after all, nothing but applied physiology, with particular reference to the physical well-being of mankind. According to my experience, men of science and physicians, who are specially grounded in the practical and theoretical study of physiology, chemistry, and natural philosophy, are those who can most easily fit themselves for the special work of hygienic science. It is true, physiology includes the most essential points of hygiene, and physiology is an application of natural philosophy, chemistry, and anatomy. ”

“ The prevention of sickness is due in a large part to the study of hygiene. It is estimated that over twenty-five per cent of the deaths that occur yearly in this country could be averted if all people lived in a hygienic manner. In its application to the lives of each of us, as a member of our family, as a member of the school we attend, and as a future citizen, a knowledge of hygiene is of the greatest importance.
Relations of Plants to Animals.—But there are other reasons why an educated person should know something about biology. ”

“ An individual who has studied the laws of hygiene may influence beneficently, for instance, the imperfections of his digestive apparatus, but always within the very narrow limits of his organic capacities. ”

“ The great need of the present day is adequate instruction in physiology and hygiene, that humanity may not only know how to secure the restoration of health, when lost, but by attention to physiological and sanitary laws may retain good health indefinitely. The body is the theatre of constant change. ”

“ In the most highly civilized countries the advance of scientific surgery and discoveries in medicine are hailed with the greatest applause. In such countries the subjects of sanitation and hygiene are given the closest attention, not only by students and scientists, but by every thoughtful individual. It is being recognized that there is no great and impressive mystery about our physical natures by virtue of which we escape responsibility for guarding our own health in every reasonable way. ”

“ Some of our advanced thinkers are suggesting a new mode of practice, that is the prevention of disease by proper hygienic measures. Chairs are being established and professors appointed to deliver lectures on hygiene. ”

“ There is not one among these departments of hygiene in which nothing is left to be done; in most of them the work has scarcely begun. There has always been a desire for and an aiming at health; but ideas about it have changed completely. The former supports of hygiene have crumbled away in the powerful analytical solvents of modern physiology ”

“ When members of the dominant school of medicine find men leading patients suffering from various skin diseases, Bright's disease, chronic digestive troubles, rheumatism and other ills which they themselves make little or no impression upon back to health, they are unwilling to believe that such results can be accomplished by means of hygiene and proper feeding. ”

“ All that modern hygiene now does for the public health, especially [465] the improvement of the dwellings and food of the poorer classes, the prevention of disease by healthier habits, baths, athletics, etc., can be traced to the monistic teaching or reason, and is altogether opposed to the Christian belief in Providence and the dualism connected therewith. The maxim of modern hygiene is: God helps those who help themselves. ”

“ It follows logically from these considerations that if we are anxious to preserve the vitality of the kidneys and also free the blood from noxious elements, we must pay special attention to a good action of the skin, and this is only possible by a rational hygiene. ”

“ The teaching of medicine should be much more largely physiological and hygienic than at present, and such subjects as food values, the hygiene of infancy and childbirth, the physiology of breast feeding, and the influence of environment on the health of their future patients should be the subject of careful [Pg 100] training—especially in regard to housing, feeding, clothing, and conditions of work. ”

“ If half the care bestowed on hygiene were given to the study of metaphysics and the moral elevation of thought, it would usher in the millennium.
Bathing and brushing to correct the secretions, or remove unhealthy exhalations from the cuticle, receive a useful rebuke from Christian healing, that makes not clean the outside of the platter, and a hint from the Irish emigrant, whose filth has not affected his health because of the correspondence of mind and body. To the mind equally gross, dirt gives less uneasiness. ”

“ The part which the public services, such as the army and navy, played in the progress of hygiene was very important, as might indeed be expected; for under no other circumstances could bodies of men be so well observed, and the effects of surroundings and conditions upon health noted. ”

“ In these regions the entire surface of the body is seldom or never washed during the whole life, and yet these people are healthy, vigorous and long-lived. If physiology and the laws of hygiene were more thoroughly and more generally understood, people would be more cautious in tampering with the skin, or in any other way disturbing the harmony of the vital organs. ”

“ This interdependence of individuals being once appreciated, it follows that a book on hygiene must deal, not only with the question of individual living, but also with those broader questions having to do with the cause and spread of disease, with the transmission of bacteria from one community to another, and with those natural influences which, more or less under the control of man, may affect a large area if their natural destructive tendencies are allowed to develop. ”

“ The inclusion of the necessary hygiene of all organs in courses of biology or zoölogy that have emphasized physiology and its bearings on health is the best arrangement so far proposed and tested in practice. ”

“ The period of which I have to speak has certainly witnessed great improvements in the theory of hygiene. The old heroic treatment of diseases has nearly disappeared. The nauseous draughts, the blood-letting and blisters, have given place to moderate medication, the choice of climate and the regulation of diet. Women have been admitted as copartners with men in the guardianship of the public health. Athletic sports help the student to fresh blood and efficient muscle, without which the brain sickens and perishes. ”

“ Now that our individual education has enabled us to understand what hygiene is and its importance has been demonstrated, we have not only improved our sanitary condition but a collective sentiment equal to the sum total of the individual sentiments has been formed, and a public opinion in favor of hygiene has been established. ”

“ Our homes, our industrial occupations, our legislative enactments, should all be guided by hygienic knowledge, and its diffusion should be actively encouraged by the community. Our hospitals and dispensaries need to promote practical hygiene. ”

“ The facts of hygiene and therapeutic measures are widely scattered through medical literature, and extend over hundreds of years of time. Many volumes have been written on diseases of the eye, the heart, liver, and stomach, brain and other organs, to understand which requires special technical education. ”

“ It must be remembered that proper mastication of food, which [Pg 257] we have seen to be a leading principle of the new hygiene, cannot be carried out unless you have a good and healthy mouth. Five brushings a day at home is the ideal and proper care for every mouth, for those who eat through the ordinary routine of three meals a day. The first thing in the morning the teeth should be thoroughly brushed with tepid water to remove the decomposed mucous and saliva produced in the mouth during sleep. After eating the teeth should be cleansed with the help of a dentifrice. ”

“ That branch of hygiene dealing with industries is of very great importance. This will be readily recognized when we consider that practically the entire population is involved in some sort of gainful occupation. ”