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HYGIENE

90S

HYGIENE

which, along the neck and back, forms a mane. The smallest forms are the size of a large dog, and the largest ones approach the tiger and lion in size. They all have powerful jaws and teeth capable of crushing the hardest bones. They sometimes kill living prey, but feed mainly upon carrion and carcasses left by the lion or other beasts. They prowl at night and dig into graves, and are, therefore, regarded with fear and horror. They, in reality, are of a cowardly disposition and less ferocious than they are commonly believed to be. They have been tamed and kept in place of dogs,, There are three varieties. The striped hyena of southern Asia and nearly all Africa is in general brownish-gray with dark cross-stripes on the sides of the body. They live in caves by day and hunt in packs at night. The brown hyena is found in Cape Colony. The spotted hyenas live in southern Africa. They are smaller than the largest varieties of striped hyena, but more dangerous and fierce. Besides howling, this form makes a noise like hysterical laughter, which has gained for it the title of the laughing hyena.

Hygiene. (hlfji--en) is the name given to that department of inquiry which deals with the causes and prevention of disease in their relation to the preservation of health. As thus defined, hygiene, while founded on medical experience and advanced by medical research, stands out clear and defined from the ordinary run of the science and art of medicine, which deal with the cure of disease. The aim of hygiene is to prevent disease by the due appreciation of the causes which induce a departure from the normal type of healthy life. In this sense hygiene has well been named preventive medicine, since it seeks to anticipate the work of the physician by its endeavor to remove the causes on which the diseases that affect mankind depend,, Hygiene presents for consideration two chief phases. The first section, Personal Hygiene, relates to the individual as a unit and to his duties in maintaining health and preventing disease. The second section deals with Public Health, and concerns the relations which exist between masses of men and the conditions of healthy living. In the first case the study embraces such subjects as food, clothing, habits, heredity and the like, which relates to the personal history of the unit. In the latter case hygiene has to regard the community and the nation and to investigate the laws under which disease is liable to be propagated by the circumstances of collective life. The departments of hygiene which deal with drainage, healthy houses, the removal of waste and the prevention of infectious disease illustrate the subjects with which the health-officer concerns himself.

It is in the i8th century that hygiene begins to appear on the social horizon with something of clear outline and defined aims,

as a distinct branch of science, pursuing a very practical relation to the lives of men. The sanitary historian has to take account of at least three great names as those of forerunners in the work of hygienic progress John Howard, the philanthropist, largely based his work of jail-reform on improvement in the terrible state of these places of confinement. They were overcrowded and filthy in the highest degree, and as a consequence of these conditions typhus fever (which is a disease of overcrowding) reigned rampant under the name of jail-fever. Howardy by his undaunted efforts, succeeded in clearing the jails of this pest; and to-day our criminals reap the fruit of Howard's philanthropy in the fact that the jail now ranks in reality as the healthiest of dwelling-places. Captain Cook, the navigator, stands out as the second of the sanitary pioneers of the last century. He it was who first showed that scurvy, which essentially is a blood disorder and from which whole ships' crews used to remain prostrate during long voyages, is due to improper feeding. He showed that, in the absence of fresh vegetables, lime juice should be served out regularly to ships' crews. To-day Captain Cook's discovery is duly acted upon in the case of long voyages. The third discovery of importance in the 18th century is that of vaccination by Jen-ner, which was introduced into practice about 1796.

The advance of medical science —• especially the progress which has been made in microscopic research into the causes of disease — together with the spread of education and of a consequent intelligent interest in health science among the people, has tended powerfully to awaken national endeavor in matters both of personal and public hygiene. To-day it may be said that we possess a very fairly equipped staff of health experts in every large town, able and eager to assist and advise the citizens in the discharge of their manifest duties to themselves and their neighbors in the observance of hygienic rules. One of the most important enactments, for instance, is represented by the law which in many towns makes compulsory the notification to the authorities of every case of contagious disease which falls under the notice of the householder or medical attendant or both. In this way it is sought to limit the spread of those infectious ailments which add to the death-rate each year. The authorities, being early informed of the appearance of any cases of these diseases, can take prompt measures for their isolation and their removal, if need be, to the hospital. The seaports, too, are now narrowly watched by the health-officers of these ports, and suspicious cases of illness on vessels arriving in harbor are at once dealt with. Cholera, it may be mentioned, which has run unchecked on the continent of Europe on several occasions within late years,