Isolation and disinfection—but the old quarantine and fumigation under new names! Who of us has not sympathized with the traveler of the earlier days in the Levant, when he was condemned to days and weeks of detention in the barren lazaretto? And even at so comparatively recent a date as the pilgrimage recorded by Mark Twain in his “Innocents Abroad,” he states that the Italians found it more to their convenience to fumigate travelers than to wash themselves. How very different is a modern quarantine station, such as may be found near any of our more important ports on the Atlantic coast. If the health officer of the port finds a contagious disease upon board, he immediately removes the sick to the hospital, and keeps the well under supervision long enough to see if the disease has been communicated to any. He may keep them on shipboard; but more likely, if the ship must be disinfected, he removes them to the detention station, safely separated from the hospital. The steerage has been crowded, and there is need of disinfection of their persons and clothing. Under proper supervision, each is required to take a bath, for which abundant facilities are furnished; and while this is doing their clothing has been placed in the steam disinfecting apparatus, a partial vacuum secured, superheated steam introduced, the clothing thoroughly disinfected, a partial vacuum again produced, whereby the contents are rapidly dried, and they are ready to be put on again by the time the bath is completed. The luggage is treated in the same way, while the cargo is probably treated to a sulphur fumigation,—the sulphur being burned in furnaces and the fumes carried to all parts of the cargo through lines of hose. In the course of a very few days, at least, all but the sick can proceed on their journey without any risk of conveying the disease.
Everything that has thus far been chronicled regarding the progress of sanitary science has related to the diminution of the death-rate and the prevention of disease. After all, is this worthy the telling? When one learns “how the other half lives,” or, with more restricted knowledge, realizes to a degree the intensity of the remark of a young Hebrew, replying to a command of a police officer to clean up, as related in “The Workers” by Professor Wykoff: “You tell us we’ve got to keep clean,” he answered in broken English, lifting his voice to a shout above the clatter of machines; “what time have we to keep clean, when it’s all we can do to get bread? Don’t talk to us about disease; it’s bread we’re after, bread!”
Is it worthy of boasting that sanitary science is only increasing the hardships and adding to the number of mouths to be fed, without opening up new ways to earn one’s bread? Even if it be so decided, and all the claims of progress thus far made be declared wanting, there still remains much worthy of praise. Sanitary science strives not only to prevent disease, but also to promote health, and its progress is fully as marked in its efforts at promotion as in those of prevention, although we do not possess the cold figures of even imperfect vital statistics to demonstrate the proposition.
It must be kept in mind that sanitary science is wider than sanitation in its technical sense. One would not care to assert that philanthropic effort and sweet charity are resultants of the development of sanitary science,—very few care to assert an evident untruth. But the influence of this study has been widespread and beneficial. The whole round of social science is also permeated with the truths demonstrated by the sanitarian, and is likewise deeply indebted to its teachings. Our field broadens greatly as we view it, just as one who has been traveling through a vale of surpassing grandeur, because of the mountain barriers on either side, finds himself confronted by a park whose beauty is enhanced by its variety as well as its extent, bounded, it is true, by the same mountains, but merely a hazy definition of the distant horizon.
In the construction of dwellings, for example, the small, low ceiled rooms, whose earthen or stone floors were covered with rushes seldom removed, the absorbers of whatever might fall upon the floor; the unpaved, unswept, and unsewered street; the domestic water supply but a well into which filters the water from the adjoining cesspool,—these and many similar destroyers of health and comfort can no longer be found among nations classed as enlightened in our school geographies. Even the improvements of half a century ago—the tenements improvised out of the deserted mansions of the well-to-do, with the additions built on the rear of the lot to increase the density of the population and the rent of the owner (as well as the death-rate), are disappearing, and in their places we find dwellings capable of furnishing air and light to all of the residents.
A QUARANTINE STATION.
Then, in the matter of streets, how much more attention is now given to small parks! When about the middle of the century interest in public parks was revived, the efforts of the various cities were directed to the securing of large tracts of ground and beautifying them in every way. They were open to every one, it is true, but too often too far removed to be of use to the submerging tenth. Now, while not adorning these with one garland less, the effort is making to break up the congestion of the crowded districts by breathing spaces, to the comfort and vigor of those who must make the surrounding houses their homes. The streets, too, no longer paved with the unsightly cobble-stones, are made noiseless with the asphalt paving and, what is more to the purpose, can be easily cleansed by flushing. When practical business, and not practical politics, prevails in the municipality, there is no opportunity for the household refuse to accumulate, although no longer rushes are available to receive it, for it is regularly and promptly removed.
The exigencies of trade compelled our government to establish its bureau for the inspection of meat. The necessity of an inspection of foodstuffs for export demonstrates the possibility of adulteration for the home market. While, possibly, the ingenuity of the sophisticator has more than kept pace with the keenness of the inspector, the health of the people has been maintained, their comfort promoted, and their resources husbanded by the inspections carried on by the various city and state boards of health.
The welfare of the people at home, in their dwellings and at their tables, does not limit the efforts of the sanitarian. He takes cognizance of the daily toil, the ceaseless grind, to win one’s daily bread. He recognizes that some callings are dangerous or annoying to the people, and devises methods to overcome this, or failing in this, insists that such occupations must be carried on remote from the dwelling-place of man. Others, he finds, bring danger to those who are employed. This may not be an inherent danger, but one acquired by our crowding of operatives, or in other ways not securing to them proper comfort; and factory inspectors are at work to reduce these dangers to a minimum, and to prevent child labor as well—giving to youth, as far as cessation from overmuch toil can give, an opportunity to develop into physical manhood or womanhood. The sanitarian insists upon proper ventilation in mines, and tries to devise the means to remove the danger from those trades that ordinarily are inherently dangerous.