There is truly little humanitarian feeling evident in the social life of Buenos Ayres, although the organisation of the Asistencia pública is in every respect admirable and its first aid to the injured and the sick leaves nothing to be desired. The Hospital organisation into whose care the patient passes after leaving the hands of the Asistencia is by no means so well conducted, so that while you may rely on being taken to a hospital in the best possible way, Heaven help you after you have been left there! While it is true that the Argentine is far in advance of most of the other republics in its provisions for public vaccination, and also in its sane policy of making vaccination compulsory, the official treatment of disease always seemed to me to suggest a nervous dread of the possibilities, a feverish readiness to test all the latest European innovations for its suppression. The memory of past plagues is a potent factor in this; recollections and traditions of the devastations wrought in Buenos Ayres by Yellow Jack a generation ago do much to spread the nervousness when there is any whisper of epidemics in other South American ports.
January 29, 1913, was the second anniversary of the first great epidemic of yellow fever that decimated the population of Buenos Ayres, and the anniversary coincided with an outbreak of bubonic plague in the northern city of Tucumán. The occasion was seized by the very competent and vigorous writer of “Topics of the Day” in the Buenos Ayres Standard to deliver an excellent homily on “Disease as a Hygienist.” From this I quote a few passages which I think worthy of attention, coming as they do from the pen of an outspoken local critic:
Unfortunately government as an art is not understood to include or embrace hygiene. Politics concern themselves only with the passions of the people, and the detriment thereof. The oft-quoted tag: “the health (sic) of the people is the supreme law,” is remembered only when an orator is anxious to display his erudition, or when he feels in a particularly cynical mood. The “supreme law,” as every one knows, is to get what you can, when you can, how you can, but get it!
Not merely in the Provinces is hygiene neglected. The big cities are great culprits in this matter. Some years ago the city of Rosario was visited by bubonic plague. Instantly it was placed in a state of siege. Trains from outside were not allowed to enter, nor were passengers allowed to leave without “a thorough disinfection.” They and their luggage were submitted to the process, which gave them a disagreeable odour, but, unfortunately, gave immunity to no one. The outbreak was, as a matter of fact, too benevolent to cause wide alarm in Rosario, but it had a wonderful influence in stimulating the city authorities. As if by some enchantment, the old fœtid system of cesspools in the centre of the city was done away with and modern sanitation installed. Legions of homeless dogs were summarily caught and mercifully asphyxiated. The vigorous broom of reform was wielded unceasingly for a few months, and Rosario smelled sweeter in consequence. But much still remains to be done in Rosario. In Buenos Ayres the old problem of sanitation is now in course of solution, a comprehensive and stupendous scheme being in course of execution. Still there are places in the outskirts that would serve as nurseries for exotic disease-germs. Unfortunately, too, the conventillos are full of children and adults predisposed by heredity, by malnutrition and unwholesome surroundings, to fall victims to, and propagate, any passing epidemic....
The fact is, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a city, town or village in Argentina that can boast of adequate sanitary arrangements. The smaller the place the greater the problem. But to listen to Argentine orators, in Congress or out of Congress, it might be thought that this country had absolutely nothing to worry about but the unsatisfactory political conditions of the Provinces and the country. Whole sessions are devoted to a sterile debate upon the alleged covert intervention of the National authorities in the mean and pettifogging “politics” of the Provinces. But never a word about the squalor that is endemic in the cities and towns of these politician-ridden, quasi-autonomous States. Should Nemesis come along she will exact heavy retribution for culpable loss of time and opportunity, sacrificed in order that glib orators may air their ineffective gifts.
Clearly social hygiene is not yet a strong point in the Argentine, where 62 per cent. of deaths among children born in the country are due to malnutrition and errors of diet. Think of the folly of it! A land clamouring for population, inviting immigrants of all races, yet allowing a high percentage of its new-born citizens to perish owing to the lack of humanitarianism in its social system. The life of the individual is valued lightly in the Argentine and in any sort of society where the welfare of the component atoms is deemed of no importance, the basis upon which to rear the fabric of social well-being is insecure.
As an illustration of the poor stuff out of which the social life of Buenos Ayres has to be constructed, note the following, which I reprint from the Buenos Ayres Standard:
“Those who live in glass houses should pull the blinds down” is an old axiom worth keeping in mind. Although not exactly a glass house, there is a hotel in Calle Cangallo. A bedroom in the ground floor has two large windows fronting the street. Last night both these windows were surrounded by an admiring crowd. An Englishman who happened to pass naturally stopped to look at the attraction. This consisted of a young and exceedingly pretty woman who had “divested” herself and got into bed, quite oblivious of the fact that the persianas (lattice shutters) were wide open. The evening was warm, and as she slept the sleep of the just, she exhibited even more of the human form divine than would be considered discreet by a classical dancer. The admiring crowd freely criticised the sleeping beauty and made no attempt whatever to arouse her to a sense of her position. Our English friend promptly entered the hotel, explained matters, and a maid promptly entering the room switched off the light, to the accompaniment of a chorus of groans from those who stood without.
Summer Scenes on the Tigre, the River Resort near Buenos Ayres