Personal and household arrangements in relation to health : including hints with respect to the use of gas, gas-stoves, and of modern wall-papers / by John Angell.

Angell, John.

Date:: 1880

Credit: Personal and household arrangements in relation to health : including hints with respect to the use of gas, gas-stoves, and of modern wall-papers / by John Angell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

2/32 (page 14)

$it—the work done has not only been well done, but it has been amply done. Experience, however, has shown the Associa tion how really difficult it is to sufficently interest the general public in those questions of hygiene and sanitation in which \\ undoubtedly should have the greatest concern, and on which its real well-being as a community essentially depends. Lectures have already been delivered to you on Seeds of Disease, Foul Air, Pure Air in Relation to Health, The Dwelling-house in Relation to Health, and various other subjects of the highest importance in relation to the public health and well- being. My more immediate duty this evening will be not so • much to point out to you what particular districts you should live in, what particular houses you should inhabit, what particular forms of drainage the public authorities should adopt in youi streets, but, living in the houses and streets in which you do live, and with the conveniences and resources already at your disposal how you should best regulate your personal and household arrangements and habits, so as to secure to yourselves and youi families the highest degree of health and comfort attainable undei: the circumstances in which you actually find yourselves placed In pursuance of this object it will be my duty to lay down a serie; of special rules, the observance of which is absolutely necessary ir order to secure to yourselves and your families that inestimabk advantage, sound health. Further, I wish to establish thest rules, not as the outcome of the reflection and genius of the philosopher and the man of science, not as a mere set of abstrac principles or precepts requiring gi'eat learning or ability tc comprehend, but as the simple common-sense outcome of some of the most obvious and manifest workings of nature; as the consequences of the most obvious properties of some of the mos-i common and abundant substances in the world—substances witl which we are in not only daily but in continuous contact—sub stances, but for the action of which, not only what we usually cal our boeiies, but our minds also, would instantly cease to work, am life itself cease to be a possibility. To establish these rules on th. basis indicated I shall have to bring before your notice severa simple experiments, some of which you have doubtless seen man ' a time before, but, possibly, have never heard them callei experiments. I have on this plate a small piece oigun-cotton ; on this secon. plate a small quantity of gunpowder; and here an ordinary con-; posite candle. I now apply this lighted match to the gunpowder'$