Many more examples might be given of similar fallacies which apply to later periods of life. How soon will a loving daughter allow herself to learn that the consumption of large quantities of highly nutritious food will not make for the prolongation of an aged parent’s life? The fact that abstemiousness and rigid conformity to the “simple life” 283 are not coincidents of longevity, but contributory to it, should be now common knowledge. When will the day come that the fact will be accepted that alcohol does not warm and protect the consumer, but actually lowers the temperature, and by this means, in cold weather, renders him a more ready prey to the effects of exposure. When will the value of good work cease to be measured by the exhaustion it brings about or the breakdown to which it conduces? Is it not, time that the housewife should be abashed rather than self-commiserating when a bad cold runs through her household, for observation of certain elementary principles of disinfection would go far to avert such a catastrophe? When will the fallacy be destroyed which gauges the strength of a disinfectant by the pungency of its odour? The knowledge now available on these and many other points only awaits assimilation by the housekeepers of the empire, to serve as a powerful lever by which to raise the standard of health in its every part.
XVI. HOME LIFE AN IMPORTANT SPHERE FOR SANITARY SCIENCE
The urgent call for a more intimate acquaintance with these tenets of domestic sanitary science calls for no further examples, though at the risk of wearying the reader one or two more may be selected to illustrate their claims upon every member of a household.
It behoves the householder, in the first place, to choose his dwelling with care; and, in the second, to maintain the health of its inmates by his own conduct and by compliance with the requirements of public health enactments. He must be generally acquainted, therefore, with the essentials of a healthy home and with the obligations he must fulfil or the demands he may legitimately make upon local authorities and neighbours; otherwise he cannot insure that his own care is not frustrated by derelictions of duty on the part of others. The selection and purchase of the family’s food will probably devolve upon his wife, but it rests with him to insist that this food is produced, transported or distributed, with due observance of cleanliness, and that reliable protection from sophistication or adulteration is maintained. If conformity to necessary standards as well as the good quality of their products is to be safeguarded, the premises of dairy, bakehouse, slaughter-house, laundry, market, and local purveyor of goods should come under his intelligent inspection. The surroundings as well as the conveniences of a house also call for careful consideration, especially when some of its inmates are of tender years; and the reminder that to the provision for light and air in its rooms must be assigned a greater prominence than the mere prettiness of external elevation is still necessary. It is the householder who for some time to come must from his wider knowledge of economics personally safeguard his women-folk 285 from unnecessary exertion and chronic fatigue, by the provision of efficient fittings and equipment, by a judicious expenditure upon labour-saving devices, and by insistence upon adequate rest, recreation, and remuneration. To the graduate in the school of personal experience the duty of public service will next arise, in order that the advantages enjoyed in his own home may be extended to those for whom cheap housing must be provided. Civic claims must in the near future appear much more prominently than hitherto in the balance-sheet of duty.
The necessity for a study of child life and its requirements ought to be realised by both parents before the bitter results of inexperience have permanently shadowed their home. This should be pursued by the man as well as the woman before marriage is consummated, if their offspring is to be “well born” and well nurtured.
Maternal care is of course the more conspicuous during the first ten years of a child’s life; but during the next fifteen, more especially in the case of his sons, it is the father’s example, sympathy, and companionship which will steer them healthily through the stormy seas of adolescence, which will safeguard them from pernicious habits and will extend a helping hand in moments of temptation.
To enumerate the opportunities for hygienic practice by the prime organiser of domestic methods—the mother—is almost superfluous at this point. It is the foundation upon which 286 depends the welfare of each member of a household; for it is the housekeeper who plans the food and is responsible for its character and suitability to age, season, health, and occupation. It is she who superintends, if she does not carry out, the details of cleanliness, so arduous and discouraging in our great cities. It is she who selects the clothing of her family; who directs the order of their lives:—their work and play, their rest and exercise, their sleep and their habits. It is her place to shake faith in popular patent preparations, by good reasons and demonstrations of their exaggerated claims on purse and person.[125] It is her example which sets the tone in recreation, pursuit of hobby, or choice of literature. It is her infinite, understanding patience which cements breaches in family love; it is her skilful treatment which heals wounds, spiritual as well as physical. It is her privilege to devise better methods for daily doings and to appreciate the principles of sound economics. It falls on her to discourage futile expenditure of health, time, or temper; to be alive to possibilities of progress; to show by her deeds how profound is her faith in the dignity of a home-maker and her recognition of the extraordinary demands made by her profession on intelligence, moral capacity, and mental attainments.
It has been slowly dawning upon some minds for half a century at least that kitchen methods in many of their details fail to meet the requirements 287 of sanitary science. The ordinary cook does not even suspect what cleanliness means from the laboratory point of view; neither, alas! does her mistress, in the case of 90 per cent. of middle-class housekeepers. Both alike cheerfully ignore the relative value as cleansing agents of boiling as compared with “scalding” water; and refer to the broad shoulders of the weather or, quite frankly, to bad luck, the waste of food directly attributable to ignorant and uncleanly methods in market, purveyor’s cart, or scullery. Yet no valid excuse can now be offered for ignorance of the real causes of the souring of milk, the tainting of meat, or the decay of vegetables; neither is it permissible to entrust to the untrained the care of larder and refrigerator, except under intelligent supervision. It is of course a sign of progress that the modern housewife prides herself upon the delivery of the daily milk supply in bottles. But a quite superficial acquaintance with bacteriology would show the imperfect character of such a protection. The milk may still be poured by the cook from the unwashed mouth of a bottle, grasped, even if but momentarily, by the hand of a milkman, which shortly before was caressing his horse or serving him as a substitute for a pocket-handkerchief! When the numerous uses of paper in the kitchen are considered, the advantage of a scientific acquaintance with its constituents and absorbent properties should hardly need emphasis. But the laissez-faire attitude, common in many households, permits 288 newspaper or brown-paper bags of questionable antecedents to be used indiscriminately for the lining of cake tins or the draining of fried foods. Should this be tolerated any longer?
A sounder knowledge of the risks to health associated with unwholesome food would surely check the growing disposition to purchase provisions over the telephone, instead of by personal inspection and careful selection; for the risks associated with stale vegetables or with “woolly” fish would be recognised, in the light of this fuller knowledge, as too serious to be encountered by any one responsible for the health of a household. Again, cold storage is so justly credited with the numerous and unquestionable benefits which it confers upon the housewife, that she is apt to forget the coincident dangers; only through tardily acquired experience does she become aware that foods which are thawed after freezing possess a singular faculty for rapid deterioration, and undergo subtle and detrimental changes when so preserved over a long period. No excuse for continued ignorance as to the changes responsible for such deterioration is now permissible; neither can it be condoned in connection with the “flora” of the refrigerator, now known to be accountable for the unpleasant and all-pervading flavours of the food stored in such a receptacle, and itself the product of defective cleanliness. The idiosyncrasies of different groceries, as regards temperature and receptacles, have hitherto received no attention, though the art of preserving fruits, 289 fresh as well as dried, is better appreciated than was formerly the case.