Health: How to get it and keep it.: The hygiene of dress, food, exercise, rest, bathing, breathing, and ventilation.Woods, Walter V.
Science
Health: How to get it and keep it.: The hygiene of dress, food, exercise, rest, bathing, breathing, and ventilation.
Woods, Walter V.
Health; Hygiene
=Woman’s Part in Sanitation.=--Some years ago, Dr. B. W. Richardson,
then president of the British Medical Association, said: “I want
strongly to enforce that it is the women on whom full sanitary light
requires to fall. Health in the home is health everywhere; elsewhere
it has no abiding place. I have been brought indeed by experience
to the conclusion that the whole future progress of the sanitary
movement rests for permanent and executive support on the women of
the country. When, as a physician, I enter a house where there is a
contagious disease, I am, of course, primarily impressed by the type
of the disease, and the age, strength, and condition of the sick
person. From the observations made on these points, I form a judgment
of the possible course and termination of the disease; and, at one
time, I should have thought such observations sufficient. A glance at
the appointments and arrangements and management of the house is now
necessary to make perfect the judgment. The men of the house come and
go; know little of the ins and outs of anything domestic; are guided by
what they are told; and are practically of no assistance whatever. The
women are conversant with every nook of the dwelling, from basement to
roof; and on their knowledge, wisdom, and skill, the physician rests
his hopes.”
=Materials of the Dwelling.=--No material is so dry and healthful as
wood. Where the dangers of fire preclude the use of this material, as
in close and compact cities and towns, and where brick and stone must
be employed, such houses may, with very slight additional expense,
be rendered comparatively dry. Ordinary bricks absorb a great deal of
moisture, and carry dampness from cellar to attic. Soft building stone
is nearly as bad. The use of a double course of vitrified brick on
a thick layer of the best cement just above the foundation wall, or
ground line, will prevent the dampness of the soil from being carried
up through the walls. The outside dampness from rains and sleet may
also be corrected by the use of thick studding against the walls on
the inside to support the plastering. This leaves an inch or two of
space between the outer wall and the plastering, through which the air
can circulate, and thus preserve the inner walls of the dwelling from
dampness.
=Lighting.=--The Italians have a proverb, “When you let the sunshine in
you drive the doctor out.” A house should be constructed so as to admit
an abundance of light. Architects, and builders, too, often undervalue
the health-giving properties of sunshine, or sacrifice them to other
considerations. Even the mistress of the house, whose first thought
should be the health of herself and that of her children, frequently
shuts out the sunshine to save her carpets and furniture. It is better
to have the roses on the children’s cheeks than on the carpets.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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