Euthenics, the science of controllable environment. Ellen H. Richards

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СКАЧАТЬ of the value of concerted effort by individuals and of the power of suggestion was given by a woman’s club in a small town. The members became aware of the dangers in exposed food, and on investigation found their own market to be very low in standards of cleanness. At a certain meeting they agreed to ask the proprietor why he did not protect this and cover that article. Certain members were told off for the duty and the days agreed upon. Mrs. A., making her usual purchases, casually asked why such an article was not covered. “I never thought about it,” was the answer. Mrs. B., the next day, asked why such an article was left out for the flies. “I never thought about the flies.” Mrs. C. asked the same question on the third day. The proprietor said: “You’re the third woman who has asked me that. No one ever suggested it before, but it would be a good idea.” Before the end of two weeks the provisions and groceries were covered. The end had been gained without resort to coercion.

      We know that our capacity for mental and bodily work depends on our supply of food. Proper food is necessary as a source of power for the work of the body as well as to furnish material for growth and repair of the losses of the body. Taking food is the most interesting of the vital processes. It appeals to all the senses (except hearing).

      Professor Dawson calls attention to the fact that the richest food areas in the world have provided the most powerful stocks of men of which we have any record, and it has been pointed out by many that improper food is closely connected with mental and moral defects. Strong men and women are not the product of improper food. Dr. Stanley Hall says: “The necessity of judicious, wholesome food is paramount. … You can educate a long time by externals and not accomplish as much as good feeding will accomplish by itself. Children must be supplied with plenty of nutritious food if they are to develop healthily either in mind or body.”

      Mr. Robert Hunter says: “All that we are, either as individuals or as a complexly constituted society of men, is made possible by the food supply. … Perhaps more than any other condition of life it lies at the door of most of the social and mental inequalities among men.”

      In these days of irresponsibility there is probably more harm done to the health by ignoring physical law in the matter of eating than in any other one thing.

      It is in the study of food substances and their possibilities in relation to better sanitary conditions that the widest field is open to housekeepers, and the subject should be especially fascinating to women of education and ability. All the skill and knowledge of the best educated women should be enlisted in the cause of better food for the people. Certainly no subject, except that of pure air, can have a closer bearing on the health than right diet. Much sound teaching will be needed before bad habits of eating and drinking will be conquered.

      A strong, well man whose work is muscular and carried on in the open air, as is that of the farmer and of the fisherman, will have the power to assimilate almost anything, and can maintain abundant health on the coarsest food poorly prepared, provided, only, that it is abundant and composed of the chemical constituents that the body requires.

      Only a small proportion of our people, however, engage in work of this sort. The majority are compelled by occupation, age, or health to remain indoors. For them nutritious, readily digested food is a requisite. The farmer or the fisherman can digest, even thrive upon, food which would be deadly for a woman working in a factory.

      In the fourth report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health (1873), Dr. Derby, the secretary, holds that “we have good reason to believe that the many forms of dyspepsia which are so commonly met with among all classes in Massachusetts, in country quite as much as in town, are but too often the danger signal that Nature gives us to show that the food, either in its quality, or its preparation, or its variety, is unsuited to maintain the vital processes. If this warning is rejected, the result of malnutrition is frequently chronic disease of the so-called major class.”

      Sanitation in relation to food deals first with wholesome and clean materials—meat from animals free from disease; fruit and vegetables free from decay; milk, butter, etc., free from harmful bacteria. The dangers are the transference to the human body of encysted organisms like trichina; of the absorption of poisonous substances as toxins or ptomaines; of the lodgment of germs of disease along with dust on berries, rough peach skins, crushed-open fruits; of dirt clinging to lettuce, celery, and such vegetables as are eaten raw.

      For the next class of dangers we turn to the handling of foods with unclean hands.

      In countless ways disease is spread mysteriously, all due to unclean habits. It is a safe precaution to patronize only those restaurants in which the waiters are evidently trained to handle the food and vessels with care. It will pay well to take care of one’s hands and learn sanitary habits when one is young; then one will do right without effort. Whatever change of ideas may come with increase of knowledge, these habits will not need to be unlearned. Without knowing the reasons for them, they have been proclaimed in civilized lands.

      It should be the part of the physicians to take pains to advise, for most of our people are accessible to ideas; yet from these can come no improvement until the people are convinced that it is needed. Just as soon as the individual fully realizes that he himself is to blame for his suffering or his poverty in human energy, he will apply his intelligence to the bettering of his condition. If he can, in a short time, make as good a showing as public effort has made in the case of water supplies, he will accomplish much for the race.

      Of equal importance to food, in the proper care of the human machine, comes the air we breathe.

      Many of man’s present physical troubles are due to the roof over his head confining the warmed, used-up air, which would escape freely if there were an opening provided. The first law of sanitation requires the quick removal of all wastes. Once-breathed air is as much a waste as once-used water, and should be allowed to escape. Sewers are built for draining away used water. Flues are just as important to serve as sewers for used air. Air is lighter than water, and out-breathed air being warmed is lighter than that at room temperature. It rises to the ceiling, where it will escape if it is allowed to do so before it cools sufficiently to fall.

      The roof also keeps out sunlight, and some late investigations indicate that glass cuts off some of the most vitally important light rays. The “glame” of the Ralstonites—“air in motion with the sunlight on it”—may have a scientific basis.

      It will at once be retorted, “But we cannot heat all out-of-doors.”

      A partial reply is: Do not try to make your house a tropical jungle. Travelers assure us that such an atmosphere is not conducive to work or to health.

      All great nations have lived in a temperate climate, where physical and mental activity was possible for many hours a day. Science is more and more clearly giving reasons for the cooler temperature in certain physiological laws. The habits of life in regard to air and food are largely under individual, or at least under family control, and should be studied as personal hygiene.

      The lessons being so clearly taught in the treatment of tuberculosis should be heeded in forming the general living habits of the people.

      If loss of life can be lessened and working power increased by man’s effort, why does he not make the effort? Why are men and women so apathetic over the prevalence of disease? Why do they not devote their energies to stamping it out? For no other reason than their disbelief in the teachings of science, coupled with a lingering superstition that, after all, it is fate, not will power, which rules the destinies of mankind.

      Perhaps it is too much to expect that a sturdy plant of belief should have grown since the days of Edwin Chadwick and Benjamin Ward Richardson (1830–50), less than a century ago, when there were perhaps not a dozen men and women who believed СКАЧАТЬ