Health on the Farm: A Manual of Rural Sanitation and HygieneHarris, H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy)
Science
Health on the Farm: A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene
Harris, H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy)
Rural health; Sanitation, Household
What a pity it is that the young will not learn from the experience of
those who have gone before them! Could they only do so, how much
suffering and woe could be avoided in this world. Unfortunately, however,
there are few men so constituted that they are willing to be guided by
the experience of those who have preceded them, and there is but a faint
possibility, therefore, that any good can be accomplished by warning the
coming generation of the troubles in store for them should they not heed
the advice of those who have suffered before them. Notwithstanding this,
the writer feels that these words of warning should be spoken to the
young, since they, alas, are the only ones to be benefited by such
advice.
_As you value your happiness materially, and as you desire a healthy old
age and a long life, inform yourselves as to the few simple laws that
govern human existence, and attempt so far as lies in your power to
follow them. If you do not do this, disaster will follow as surely as the
night follows the day._
_Apathy of the Public as to Hygiene._--As a partial consequence,
probably, of all the reasons mentioned, along with others, there exists
in the popular mind a curious apathy concerning hygienic matters--an
apathy so great that it is scarcely possible to get the average man to
discuss, much less to put in practice the all-important laws that govern
health. As a result of the work of the various State boards of health and
of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, this condition of
affairs happily shows some signs of abatement, and we certainly have
reasons to believe that the future promises great things along these
lines. No sign of this change is more significant than the awakening of
the press of the country to the vast importance of instructing the public
in health matters, and their changed attitude toward the charlatans and
quacks who live by promising the impossible. Largely subsidized by the
infamous vendors of patent medicine, our newspapers and magazines still
lend their columns to these human vampires who prey pre-eminently on the
ignorance and credulity of the hopelessly-diseased poor; but within
recent years some of our foremost journals show signs of an awakening of
conscience, and a very few have even gone so far as to exclude
advertisements of this character altogether.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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