Air, water and food from a sanitary standpoint / by Ellen H. Richards and Alpheus G. Woodman.

  • Richards, Ellen H. (Ellen Henrietta), 1842-1911.
Date:
[1904], [©1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Air, water and food from a sanitary standpoint / by Ellen H. Richards and Alpheus G. Woodman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    of normal food and food value even more than of adulterants or of poisonous food, ptomaines and toxines. The cultiva- tion of intelligent public opinion is most important, and each student should go out from a sanitary laboratory a mission- ary to his fellow men. That is, the office of a laboratory of sanitary chemistry should be so to diffuse knowledge as to make it impossible for educated people to be deluded by the representations of unprincipled dealers. Freedom from superstition is just as important in this as in the domain of astronomy or physics. So long as chemists are employed by manufacturing concerns in making adulterated and fraudulent foodstuffs, so long must other chemists be em- ployed in protecting the people until the public in general becomes wiser. A part of the common knowledge of the race should be the essentials of healthful living, in order that the full measure of human progress may be enjoyed. There is needed a greater respect for food and its func- tions in the human body, a better knowledge of its effect on the daily output of energy, its absolute relations to health and life, and the enjoyment of the same. The familiarity with these facts which is given by a few hours' work in the laboratory will make a lasting impression and will enable the student to benefit his whole life, even if he never uses it pro- fessionally. It is purely scientific knowledge, just as much as that derived from a study of the phases of the moon or the formulae of integration. The variety of operations in such work, calling for great diversity of apparatus and methods, is an educational factor not to be overlooked in laboratory training. For all detailed discussions and methods the reader :s referred to such works as those of Wiley, Allen, Blythe, etc., but for the student who needs to study, as a part of general education, only typical substances, and such methods as can