Rural Hygiene

by Henry N. Ogden

Age and sex.

As indirect causes of disease, age and sex cannot be overlooked. It is well known, for instance, that certain diseases belong essentially to childhood, measles and scarlet fever being markedly prevalent among children under ten years of age. In fact, it has been said by experts that if measles could be kept from children under five years old, the disease would be practically stamped out, since beyond that age they are less susceptible and the course of the disease is much milder. No greater mistake can be made than in exposing children to so-called "children's diseases" because of a desire "to have it over with." Not only is such exposure foolish, since it is quite possible to escape the disease altogether if in the first few years of life it is avoided, but also inviting death, since the mortality of the disease becomes markedly less and less as the age of the patient advances.

Many of the diseases of children are due to imperfect and incomplete development; either the lungs or the stomach or some other organ is not equal to its work, and the child remains an invalid or dies. Many children die from imperfect nutrition, especially in the second summer, when teething is at its height, on account of the ignorance of the mother and on account of unsanitary surroundings. No movement is more promising in the way of prolonging the lives of children than that recently inaugurated in New York which undertakes to teach mothers, of foreign nationality in particular, how to dress, bathe, feed, and bring up their children.

Another reason why disease occurs more frequently among children is, as will be seen later, that one attack of a disease frequently confers immunity upon the patient, so that, for example, a child having scarlet fever is not likely to have the disease later on in life; but this is no argument for exposing one's self to contagion, since it is quite possible that even the first attack may be avoided. Tuberculosis or consumption is preëminently a disease of youth, as is also typhoid fever. It is very rare for the latter disease to appear in children or in adults over forty-five, and for the former to develop until maturity.

In old age, diseases occur due to the gradual failure of the different organs to perform their normal functions. Some of these diseases are connected with the heart and the circulation, others with the liver or with the mucous membranes, so that among those advanced in life, rheumatism, gout, cancer, and diseases of the kidneys are very apt to occur.

One of the objects of sanitation is to eliminate disease due to bacteria and to prolong the normal life, so far as is possible, past the early period when diseases are easily contracted. It is not hoped that death can in any case be prevented, but hygiene will have done its utmost when death occurs only among the aged and when the diseases then causing death are only those which are consequent upon the wearing out of the body.

So far as sex is concerned, the ordinary rules of hygiene or the violation of those rules seem to have but little concern. It is generally understood that males are on the average shorter-lived, by a few months, than females, and all statistics support this position. Some diseases, like typhoid fever, attack males more than females in the ratio of three to two, while cancer attacks females to a greater extent than males at about the same ratio reversed. Generally speaking, however, excepting in so far as their occupations and manners of living make different their vital resistance, the principles of hygiene are not affected by the incident of sex.

Occupation.

Inasmuch as this discussion is a part of rural hygiene and is assumed to apply to only one occupation, namely, that of cultivating the soil, or of raising stock, it may not be considered pertinent to discuss the effect of occupation on disease. It is worth while pointing out, however, that occupation is a very important factor as an indirect cause of disease, and that one's chances of life are vastly greater in the open country surrounded by hygienic conditions than in a city in crowded quarters, confined for long hours each day at some unhealthy occupation.

As a general warning, it may be stated that a factory containing a dust-laden atmosphere is most undesirable, and this is particularly so when the dust is mineral dust. In the country, the only comparison of conditions possible is between that of the outdoor worker and that of the indoor worker; enough has already been said upon the value of fresh air and its improving effect on the vital resistance to make further repetition unnecessary. Unfortunately, in the past the occupation known under the general term of farming has not made itself conspicuous in statistics for healthfulness; but this has been undoubtedly due not to the lack of the value of the outdoor part of the farmer's life, but to the monotony of the work and to the very bad conditions found indoors, particularly in the winter. When this indoor life has been modified so that plenty of fresh air is supplied day and night, and when reasonable attention is paid to the demands of the body in the matter of food and drink, then the duration of life of farmers will rank high in comparison with other occupations.