The urgent call for a more intimate acquaintance with these tenets of
domestic sanitary science calls for no further examples, though at the
risk of wearying the reader one or two more may be selected to
illustrate their claims upon every member of a household.
It behoves the householder, in the first place, to choose his dwelling
with care; and, in the second, to maintain the health of its inmates by
his own conduct and by compliance with the requirements of public health
enactments. He must be generally acquainted, therefore, with the
essentials of a healthy home and with the obligations he must fulfil or
the demands he may legitimately make upon local authorities and
neighbours; otherwise he cannot insure that his own care is not
frustrated by derelictions of duty on the part of others. The selection
and purchase of the family's food will probably devolve upon his wife,
but it rests with him to insist that this food is produced, transported
or distributed, with due observance of cleanliness, and that reliable
protection from sophistication or adulteration is maintained. If
conformity to necessary standards as well as the good quality of their
products is to be safeguarded, the premises of dairy, bakehouse,
slaughter-house, laundry, market, and local purveyor of goods should
come under his intelligent inspection. The surroundings as well as the
conveniences of a house also call for careful consideration, especially
when some of its inmates are of tender years; and the reminder that to
the provision for light and air in its rooms must be assigned a greater
prominence than the mere prettiness of external elevation is still
necessary. It is the householder who for some time to come must from his
wider knowledge of economics personally safeguard his women-folk from
unnecessary exertion and chronic fatigue, by the provision of efficient
fittings and equipment, by a judicious expenditure upon labour-saving
devices, and by insistence upon adequate rest, recreation, and
remuneration. To the graduate in the school of personal experience the
duty of public service will next arise, in order that the advantages
enjoyed in his own home may be extended to those for whom cheap housing
must be provided. Civic claims must in the near future appear much more
prominently than hitherto in the balance-sheet of duty.
The necessity for a study of child life and its requirements ought to be
realised by both parents before the bitter results of inexperience have
permanently shadowed their home. This should be pursued by the man as
well as the woman before marriage is consummated, if their offspring is
to be "well born" and well nurtured.
Maternal care is of course the more conspicuous during the first ten
years of a child's life; but during the next fifteen, more especially in
the case of his sons, it is the father's example, sympathy, and
companionship which will steer them healthily through the stormy seas of
adolescence, which will safeguard them from pernicious habits and will
extend a helping hand in moments of temptation.
To enumerate the opportunities for hygienic practice by the prime
organiser of domestic methods--the mother--is almost superfluous at this
point. It is the foundation upon which depends the welfare of each
member of a household; for it is the housekeeper who plans the food and
is responsible for its character and suitability to age, season, health,
and occupation. It is she who superintends, if she does not carry out,
the details of cleanliness, so arduous and discouraging in our great
cities. It is she who selects the clothing of her family; who directs
the order of their lives:--their work and play, their rest and exercise,
their sleep and their habits. It is her place to shake faith in popular
patent preparations, by good reasons and demonstrations of their
exaggerated claims on purse and person.[125] It is her example which
sets the tone in recreation, pursuit of hobby, or choice of literature.
It is her infinite, understanding patience which cements breaches in
family love; it is her skilful treatment which heals wounds, spiritual
as well as physical. It is her privilege to devise better methods for
daily doings and to appreciate the principles of sound economics. It
falls on her to discourage futile expenditure of health, time, or
temper; to be alive to possibilities of progress; to show by her deeds
how profound is her faith in the dignity of a home-maker and her
recognition of the extraordinary demands made by her profession on
intelligence, moral capacity, and mental attainments.
It has been slowly dawning upon some minds for half a century at least
that kitchen methods in many of their details fail to meet the
requirements of sanitary science. The ordinary cook does not even
suspect what cleanliness means from the laboratory point of view;
neither, alas! does her mistress, in the case of 90 per cent. of
middle-class housekeepers. Both alike cheerfully ignore the relative
value as cleansing agents of boiling as compared with "scalding" water;
and refer to the broad shoulders of the weather or, quite frankly, to
bad luck, the waste of food directly attributable to ignorant and
uncleanly methods in market, purveyor's cart, or scullery. Yet no valid
excuse can now be offered for ignorance of the real causes of the
souring of milk, the tainting of meat, or the decay of vegetables;
neither is it permissible to entrust to the untrained the care of larder
and refrigerator, except under intelligent supervision. It is of course
a sign of progress that the modern housewife prides herself upon the
delivery of the daily milk supply in bottles. But a quite superficial
acquaintance with bacteriology would show the imperfect character of
such a protection. The milk may still be poured by the cook from the
unwashed mouth of a bottle, grasped, even if but momentarily, by the
hand of a milkman, which shortly before was caressing his horse or
serving him as a substitute for a pocket-handkerchief! When the numerous
uses of paper in the kitchen are considered, the advantage of a
scientific acquaintance with its constituents and absorbent properties
should hardly need emphasis. But the _laissez-faire_ attitude, common in
many households, permits newspaper or brown-paper bags of questionable
antecedents to be used indiscriminately for the lining of cake tins or
the draining of fried foods. Should this be tolerated any longer?
A sounder knowledge of the risks to health associated with unwholesome
food would surely check the growing disposition to purchase provisions
over the telephone, instead of by personal inspection and careful
selection; for the risks associated with stale vegetables or with
"woolly" fish would be recognised, in the light of this fuller
knowledge, as too serious to be encountered by any one responsible for
the health of a household. Again, cold storage is so justly credited
with the numerous and unquestionable benefits which it confers upon the
housewife, that she is apt to forget the coincident dangers; only
through tardily acquired experience does she become aware that foods
which are thawed after freezing possess a singular faculty for rapid
deterioration, and undergo subtle and detrimental changes when so
preserved over a long period. No excuse for continued ignorance as to
the changes responsible for such deterioration is now permissible;
neither can it be condoned in connection with the "flora" of the
refrigerator, now known to be accountable for the unpleasant and
all-pervading flavours of the food stored in such a receptacle, and
itself the product of defective cleanliness. The idiosyncrasies of
different groceries, as regards temperature and receptacles, have
hitherto received no attention, though the art of preserving fruits,
fresh as well as dried, is better appreciated than was formerly the
case.
It would be easy to show, too, did space permit, what ample scope there
is for the application of sanitary science in the storeroom, as well as
the true hygienic inwardness of frequent coats of limewash in larder and
scullery, not to mention the worth of impervious coverings to their wall
surfaces and shelves. This suggests the inquiry: How many women to-day
are versed in the external tests, simple as some of them are, which can
be applied to tins containing foodstuffs, with the object of gauging the
quality of their contents; or who among our ordinary housewives
understands the reasons for the employment of reliable, _domestic_
methods of preserving the contents of the larder, such as sterilisation
by the use of heat, or why fat, sugar, salt, or vinegar are preferable
to the seductive yet questionable chemicals, so attractive to the
producer and purveyor of provisions?
A better understanding of the relation of sanitary science to daily
life would also facilitate some of the painful steps which must
inevitably be taken, in order to bridge the gulf set between the feudal
methods of the past and the modern problems of domestic service. That
the isolation from her kind of a "general" servant predisposes to
anaemia is stated as a fact on good authority, but it is certainly
not generally known. That absence of opportunity for recreation or
social intercourse has led and may lead again to deception, if not to
worse, is recognised unwillingly, if at all. That human nature is
physiologically similar, however diverse its external appearance and
standards, is very hard to realise or to act upon; so the fact that
suitable provision for bathing and wholesome sleep by dependents is not
always made, is apt to be ignored on economic grounds; and the resultant
complications are assigned to any but their real cause.
The solution of another of the acute problems of the day depends upon
the women also of this country. I refer to the character of the
influence, an influence of the most intimate, to which young children
are subjected during infancy. In addition to vulgarities of conduct or
enunciation, actual moral harm may be suffered from want of care in the
choice of a child's attendant. Bad habits, impossible to eradicate, are
to be traced to this source only. Their hygienic import calls for no
further stress. Their prevention rests entirely with the child's
parents.
Another illustration of the need for a better acquaintance with
hygiene is found in the general custom of entrusting the preparation
and care of the daily diet to empirically prepared, ill-informed,
young women. Ascertained facts in connection with, for instance,
"typhoid carriers"[126] should have surely created almost a panic in
the households of England; but it is rare to learn that even one
mistress has inquired into the personal habits of her cook, or that she
has concerned herself personally in the cultivation of most careful
attention to necessary hand-washing by her household. A mere tyro in
sanitary science would take warning and be on her guard against this
and other disgusting and preventable sources of domestic infection.
Finally, the protective function of the home must not be allowed to
obscure the educational and social. It is the right of all children to
be trained in habits of social, as well as of family, sanitary service.
Very early the love of ceaseless doing, by which these little people are
distinguished, can be taken hold of as an agent in this department of
education. Habits of neatness and order, of kindness and ready help, of
self-sacrifice and self-control, become lifelong in their persistence
and develop a physical as well as moral conscience which makes for
public health. But, without appropriate stimulus this interest in
others, this sense of civic obligation, remains in abeyance. Therefore
girls should be encouraged in the educational practice of the domestic
arts about the age of thirteen or fourteen; though instruction in the
care of children may be postponed for a year or two. Always it should
precede marriage and be adapted to the prospective social sphere of the
pupils. It would be advantageous to foster the interest of boys in
social sanitation by the introduction of some equivalent training into
their curriculum.
Enough has been said to show that knowledge of household administration
must soon become an indispensable qualification for any woman who
undertakes the charge of human lives, whether it be as wife or guardian,
as official or philanthropist, as physician or educator, as head of an
institution (such as orphanage, asylum, hospital or prison), or as
almoner of public funds. To be practical and influential this
comprehensive subject must be systematically acquired and securely
based; it must be accorded the support of men, and it must receive the
recognition due to its imperial importance. Thus sustained and
fortified, acquaintance with all that is comprehended in the domestic
administration for good of human lives will lead our women to redeem
their many shortcomings in the past, and will stimulate them to assume
with courageous confidence their weighty responsibilities in the present
and future.
Whether prepared or not for their discharge, these responsibilities
cannot be evaded. Upon their capable fulfilment depend human health and
happiness. "Health and good estate of body are above all gold," said
Ecclesiasticus, "and a strong body above infinite wealth." Seen in its
true light this great, beautiful, responsible work becomes the highest
form of consecrated service to the Source of all Life and to the Giver
of all those good things which humanity is intended richly to enjoy.