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.”