Rural Hygiene

Usually the term "hygiene" has been limited in its application to a study of the health of the individual, and treatises on hygiene have concerned themselves almost entirely with discussing such topics as food, clothing, exercise, and other questions relating to the daily life of a person. Of late years, however, it has become more and more evident that it is not possible for man to live to himself alone, but that his actions must react on those living in his vicinity and that the methods of living of his neighbors must react on his own well-being. 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.

Being written by an engineer, the following pages deal rather with the structural side of public hygiene than with the medical side, and in the chapters dealing with contagious diseases emphasis is attached to quarantine, disinfection, and prevention, rather than to etiology and treatment. The book is not, therefore, a medical treatise in any sense, and is not intended to eliminate the physician or to give professional advice, although the suggestions, if followed out, undoubtedly will have the effect of lessening the need of a physician, since the contagious diseases referred to may then be confined to single individuals or to single houses.

It has not been possible, within the limits of this one book, to describe at length the various engineering methods, and while it is hoped that enough has been said to point the way towards a proper selection of methods and to a right choice between processes, the details of construction will have to be worked out in all cases, either by the ingenuity of the householder or by the aid of some mechanic or engineer.

Finally, it may be said that two distinct purposes have been in mind throughout,--to promote the comfort and convenience of those living in the rural part of the community who, unfortunately, while most happily situated from the standpoint of health in many ways, have failed to give themselves those comforts that might so easily be added to their life; and in the second place, to emphasize the interdependence of the rural community and the urban community in the matter of food products and contagious diseases, an interdependence growing daily as interurban communications by trolley and automobile become easy.

Cities are learning to protect themselves against the selfishness of the individual, and city Boards of Health have large powers for the purpose of guarding the health of the individuals within their boundaries. The scattered populations of the open country are not yet educated to the point at which self-protection has made such authority seem to be necessary, and it is left largely to an exalted sense of duty towards their fellow-men so to move members of a rural community as to order their lives and ways to avoid sinning against public hygiene. In order to develop such a sense of honor, it is primarily necessary that the relation of cause and effect in matters of health shall be plainly understood and that the dangers to others of the neglect of preventive measures be appreciated. As a single example, the transmission of disease at school may be cited. Measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and diphtheria are all children's diseases, easily carried and transmitted, and held in check only by preventing a sick child from coming in contact with children not sick. No law is sufficient. The matter must be left to the mother, who will retain children at home at the least suspicion of sickness and keep them there until after all traces of the disease have passed away.

The health conditions in the open country, judged by the standard of statistics, are quite as good as those of the city. The comforts of country life are as yet inferior, and it is hoped that this book may do something to advance the standard of living in the families into which it may enter.

H. N. OGDEN.

ITHACA, NEW YORK, November 1, 1910.