Sanitary Science
the science health and the prevention of disease.
Considered broadly, disease is due to environmental conditions which cause injury of the living body. The causes of disease are usually divided into the external, which act from without, and the internal, due to imperfection of the body, but these imperfections in the first instance are due to external causes. study of the influence of unfavorable Sanitary science then comes to be the during the entire course of life from environmental conditions on the body conception to death. Public health, which deals with disease causes, of such a character as to produce an effect on the general population, personal hygiene or the individual, infectious diseases and the the preservation of the health of the measures of protection against them, the influence of age, climate and occupation on health, water supplies, the nutritive values of foods and the methods of marketing and preserving foods, methods of the disposal of waste material, the construction of dwellings and facon the workers, vital statistics by means tories and the influence of factory life of which the state of health of a community can be ascertained, social pathology or the influence of poverty and social conditions in the production of disease; all these and many more are considered under sanitary science, and partments of it. for the most part form separate demost important asset of a state, and Health of its people is considered the nothing contributes more to happiness and well being. Sickness renders the state not only less efficient in produc tion and less capable of defense, but the care of the sick and indigent, for poverty and sickness go together, is an enormous tax upon the well. health is not even a matter of indi- Good vidual choice, but for the sake of the well-being of society the individual is restrained from actions which would be injurious to himself or to others. A great mass of laws, national, state and local, designed for the protection of the people against disease, have been enacted and large sums of money from SANITARY SCIENCE the public funds appropriated to further health measures. All conditions affecting health have increasingly become the subject of intense study and a large amount of knowledge based upon experience and experiment is now available. As in all matters which involve consideration of living things there is still much which is uncertain, and with the scientific knowledge there is intermingled much supposed knowledge based merely upon tradition and insufficient experience. Great changes are taking place, such as the increasing industrialism bringing with it the depletion of the rural po population and the increase of the urban, the greater facility of transportation increasing the range of the environment, and the full effect of such changes upon the general health cannot yet be fully ascertained. There is still lacking such information of the conditions in the past as to afford a proper basis for comparison with the present.
We do not accurately know whether or no the general health of the people has been affected by the influence of modern conditions. From such statistics as have been gleaned from the medical examination of large numbers of drafted men in the late war, the figures show a large percentage of individuals who have become defective through disease.
SAN JOAQUIN eases, affording a striking illustration of the baneful influence of bad environmental conditions in relation to these particular diseases, and in almost every other disease these black list districts showed a higher percentage than did the normal areas. The numerical registration and tabulation of population, marriages, births, diseases and deaths, with analysis of the resulting phenomena is not of recent origin, but the development of their present form and the accuracy attained is comparatively modern. There is difficulty always in the carrying out of laws, the necessity for which is not perfectly understood. They are not efficient without the co-operation of the people, and this co-operation can be attained only through education. For this purpose the instruction of school children in the elementary principles underlying health preservation, and inculcating in them good habits of life is of the utmost importance. The care of these children during school attendance is assumed by the state, and their education in measures of health control is not less important than the other branches of study.
These statistics represent the general agents by which it is surrounded, with health of the males of military age in the state. In Great Britain the medical examinations have shown that of every nine there were three perfectly fit and healthy; two were upon a definitely infirm plane of health and strength, whether from some disability or failure of development; three men were incapable of undergoing more than a very moderate degree of physical exertion, and could in justice to their age be described as physical wrecks, and the remaining man was a chronic invalid with a precarious hold upon life. This examination brought out also the effect of occupation upon health, the agricultural population having the best showing, with a decided fall in the industrial occupations, culminating in the tailors and barbers. The examination of the drafted men in the United States showed That in the total male population of military age there were four hundred and sixty-five defective individuals of every thousand examined. Although these examinations were of males only, there is no reason to think that the females would have made a better showing, for the causes act upon all alike. Certain districts in London, where overcrowded and bad hygienic conditions notoriously exist, showed an enormously higher percentage particularly of respiratory dis-