Practical sanitation : a handbook for health officers and practitioners of medicine / by Fletcher Gardner and James Persons Simonds.

  • Gardner, Fletcher, 1869-
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Practical sanitation : a handbook for health officers and practitioners of medicine / by Fletcher Gardner and James Persons Simonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    a mighty service against hookworm and trachoma in the Southern States. In a sense, it may be truly said that hygiene is building the Panama Canal; for it is certain that had she not been evoked to fight yellow fever and other diseases, the United States would have been driven away as was France in her day. A list of the States would be long, which are now through efficient Boards of Health conducting successful campaigns for the public health. Consumption is slowly retreating before the onslaught of hy- giene, and' diphtheria and typhoid fever are in rapid retreat. Smallpox has been reduced to an almost negligible quantity, and 'the attack of hygiene, through medical inspection of school children, upon the defects and ills which beset them, will, without doiibt, bring large returns in health and efficiency. The foundation of all intelligent hygienic work is vital statistics. Vital statistics—the bookkeeping of humanity—furnish the only means of knowing the whereabouts of disease and the extent of the losses caused by it. They also tell our social latitude and longitude on the sea of time, which the nation must know if it is to endure. From these facts we learn that we must know the loca- tion and the strength of the enemy—Disease, before we can hope to combat it successfully. The first step for the successful conduct of a movement for the betterment of the public health is the col- lection of correct vital statistics, and therefore let every person do his part and see to it that the births, deaths and contagious diseases which occur in his family are reported. This book treats of public and personal hygiene, entering into details and discussing their many features. Its teachings are true and to date, and it may be confidently stated that if its direc- tions and lessons are heeded, the efficiency, wealth and happiness of the commonwealth will be greatly augmented.