Rural Hygiene. Henry N. Ogden
of Contents
The following pages represent an attempt to put before the rural population a systematic treatment of those special subjects included in what is popularly known as Hygiene as well as those broader subjects that concern the general health of the community at large.
Usually the term "hygiene" has been limited in its application to a study of the health of the individual, and treatises on hygiene have concerned themselves almost entirely with discussing such topics as food, clothing, exercise, and other questions relating to the daily life of a person. Of late years, however, it has become more and more evident that it is not possible for man to live to himself alone, but that his actions must react on those living in his vicinity and that the methods of living of his neighbors must react on his own well-being. This interdependence of individuals being once appreciated, it follows that a book on hygiene must deal, not only with the question of individual living, but also with those broader questions having to do with the cause and spread of disease, with the transmission of bacteria from one community to another, and with those natural influences which, more or less under the control of man, may affect a large area if their natural destructive tendencies are allowed to develop.
Being written by an engineer, the following pages deal rather with the structural side of public hygiene than with the medical side, and in the chapters dealing with contagious diseases emphasis is attached to quarantine, disinfection, and prevention, rather than to etiology and treatment. The book is not, therefore, a medical treatise in any sense, and is not intended to eliminate the physician or to give professional advice, although the suggestions, if followed out, undoubtedly will have the effect of lessening the need of a physician, since the contagious diseases referred to may then be confined to single individuals or to single houses.
It has not been possible, within the limits of this one book, to describe at length the various engineering methods, and while it is hoped that enough has been said to point the way towards a proper selection of methods and to a right choice between processes, the details of construction will have to be worked out in all cases, either by the ingenuity of the householder or by the aid of some mechanic or engineer.
Finally, it may be said that two distinct purposes have been in mind throughout—to promote the comfort and convenience of those living in the rural part of the community who, unfortunately, while most happily situated from the standpoint of health in many ways, have failed to give themselves those comforts that might so easily be added to their life; and in the second place, to emphasize the interdependence of the rural community and the urban community in the matter of food products and contagious diseases, an interdependence growing daily as interurban communications by trolley and automobile become easy.
Cities are learning to protect themselves against the selfishness of the individual, and city Boards of Health have large powers for the purpose of guarding the health of the individuals within their boundaries. The scattered populations of the open country are not yet educated to the point at which self-protection has made such authority seem to be necessary, and it is left largely to an exalted sense of duty towards their fellow-men so to move members of a rural community as to order their lives and ways to avoid sinning against public hygiene. In order to develop such a sense of honor, it is primarily necessary that the relation of cause and effect in matters of health shall be plainly understood and that the dangers to others of the neglect of preventive measures be appreciated. As a single example, the transmission of disease at school may be cited. Measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and diphtheria are all children's diseases, easily carried and transmitted, and held in check only by preventing a sick child from coming in contact with children not sick. No law is sufficient. The matter must be left to the mother, who will retain children at home at the least suspicion of sickness and keep them there until after all traces of the disease have passed away.
The health conditions in the open country, judged by the standard of statistics, are quite as good as those of the city. The comforts of country life are as yet inferior, and it is hoped that this book may do something to advance the standard of living in the families into which it may enter.
H. N. OGDEN.
Ithaca, New York,
November 1, 1910.
LIST OF FIGURES
FIG. PAGE
1. Map of New York State 5 2. Bad conditions about a dwelling 28 3. Grading that turns water away from the house 42 4. Modes of laying out drains 46 5. Exterior wall-drains 50 6. Interior cellar-drains 51 7. Wall modes of making air-space 53 8. Water-tight wall 54 9. Rough-backed wall 56 10. Even-backed wall 56 11. Modes of making water-proof cellar walls 57 12. Water-proofing of cellar walls 58 13. Cellar-wall forms 65 14. Letting in fresh air 78 15. Ventilating device 79 16. Ventilating device 80 17. Ventilation by means of coal stove 82 18. Coal-stove ventilation 83 19. Coal-stove ventilation 84 20. Outlets into walls 86 21. Cow-barn ventilation 88 22. How a pump works 105 23. Air-lift pump 106 24. Diagram of a spring 109 25. Water finding its way from a hillside 110 26. The sinking of wells 110 27. Mode of sinking a well 114 28. A well that will catch surface water 115 29. A well properly protected 116 30. A properly protected well 117 31. Well-drilling apparatus 118 32. Sinking a well by means of a water-jet 120 33. An enclosed spring 122 34. A spring extension 123 35. A reservoir for home use 126 36. Stream draining a privy 129 37. Contamination of a creamery from the water supply 148 38. A protected spring-chamber 157 39. Concrete core in a dam 159 40. Section of a flood dam 161 41. Section of a flood dam 162 42. A joint in tile pipe 167 43. Windmill and water tank 170 44. Installation of a ram 172 45. Means of securing fall for hydraulic ram 174 46. A hot-air engine 176 47. A gas engine 179 48. Pump operated by belt 180 49. Duplex pump operated directly by steam 180 50. Raising water by means of compressed air 182 51. Wooden tank 183 52. Iron tank 185 53. Hand pump applied to air-tank 186 54. Engine applied to air-tank 187 55. Windmill connection with tank 188 56. Construction of a wooden tank 193 57. Hot-water attachment to the kitchen stove 195 58. Enameled iron sink 197 59. Enameled iron laundry tubs 198 60. Leveling the drain 200 61. Water-supply installation 202 62. A trap 204 63. Washout water-closet 205 64. Washdown water-closet 205 65. Syphonic closet 205 66. Syphon-jet closet 206 67. Sewage beds 217 68. Plan of sewage beds 220 69. Plan of subsurface irrigation field 224 70. Section of "Miller" syphon 226 71. Plan and section of a septic tank 227 72. Section of a septic tank with syphon chamber 229 73. Plan of sewage disposal for a single house 231 74. School girl with adenoids 289 75. Outdoor sleeping porch for tuberculous patients 343 76. Mortality from pulmonary tuberculosis 344 77. Spring infected by polluted ditch 356