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Medicine at Oxford, summed up his advice as to how to be healthy in the following health rules: No alcohol.

I.

2.

Less tobacco.

3. Less tea and coffee.
4. Good, plain food.
5. Cleanliness.

6.

Plenty of fresh air.

7. Plenty of hard work.

In other words, no excesses, less stimulants, plain food, fresh air and hard work. It is a wholesome programme. Elsewhere in this little book will be found some facts concerning some of these matters. Here it is only necessary to add three brief comments from a public health point of view. First, as to cleanliness, which though it may come next to godliness in ethics, stands first as a preventive of physical disease both in the individual and in the community. The new science of bacteriology has demonstrated nothing with more certainty than that dirt leads to disease. Uncleanliness is not only inelegant and distasteful, it is the most direct channel of infection, whether as polluted water, dirty milk, or unclean bodies. Secondly, the maintenance of a high standard of personal health is the best preventive of disease. The conditions which favour disease are the overwrought brain, the over-fed stomach, the overloaded liver, the over-strained heart, the unexercised unexpansive lung, and the under-nourished blood. Yet people will not recognise this and rely instead upon a multitude of artificial means or the uncertain protection of drugs or of the Fates. Every man's first contribution to the State to which he belongs is one healthy, efficient body, his own; and this identical contribution is his

own best protection, for if the soil be healthy and resistant the seeds of disease will not flourish. Thirdly, the public health depends on the right and prompt treatment of the beginnings of disease.

The Future. From a consideration of these facts then, it becomes evident that the most urgently needed public health reform of the present day is not so much one of environment as of personal life. Fifty years of improvement of environment are now behind us; the future calls for a corresponding reform of personal life. And Ignorance and Lack of Self Control are the two roots of the evil. For a man's foes are they of his own household, and these can only with certainty be overcome by still greater powers of inheritance, of personal habit, and of mental and moral character. Much requires to be done in England in the direction of educational work in public health. Especially important is the training of girls in domestic hygiene, food values, and infant management; the personal guidance and teaching by well-qualified health visitors in the homes of the people; the awakening of a well-informed public opinion as to the inestimable value to the State of physical well-being; and the creation of a "health conscience." Any influence, also, which tends to counteract thriftlessness, alcoholism, and immorality, is an influence in favour of health, and the same is to be said of all social and religious agencies and influences which tend to raise the moral tone of the community or the character of the individual. For this reason it must not be forgotten that workers of many different views and creeds are all contributing, or should be contributing, to the betterment of life and health in England.

APPENDIX.

PRECAUTIONS FOR CONSUMPTIVE PERSONS.

Consumption is, to a limited extent, an infectious disease. It is spread chiefly by inhaling the expectoration (spit) of patients which has been allowed to become dry and float about the room as dust, or by directly inhaling the spray which may be produced when a patient coughs.

Do not spit except into receptacles, the contents of which are to be destroyed before they become dry. If this simple precaution is taken, there is practically no danger of infection. The breath of consumptive persons is free from infection, except when coughing.

The following detailed rules will be found useful, both to the consumptive and to his friends:

1. Expectoration indoors should be received into small paper bags and burnt immediately; or into a receptacle which is emptied down the drain daily, and then washed with boiling water.

2. Expectoration out of doors should be received into a suitable bottle, to be afterwards washed out with boiling water. If a paper handkerchief is used this must at once be placed in a waterproof bag, the contents subsequently burnt, and the bag washed daily.

3. Ordinary handkerchiefs, if ever used for expectoration, should be put into boiling water before they have time to become dry; or into a solution of a disinfectant, as directed by the doctor.

4. Wet cleansing of rooms, particularly of bedrooms occupied by sick persons, should be substituted for "dusting" and " sweeping."

5. Sunlight and fresh air are the greatest enemies of infection. Every patient should sleep with his bedroom window open top and bottom, a screen being arranged, if necessary, to prevent direct draught.

6. The patient should, whenever practicable, Occupy a separate bedroom. Children should never sleep in the same bedroom as the patient.

N.B. The patient himself is the greatest gainer by the above precautions, as his recovery is retarded and frequently prevented by renewed infection derived from his own expectoration.

7. Persons in good health have little reason to fear the infection of consumption. Over-fatigue, intemperance, bad air, dusty occupations, and dirty rooms favour consumption.

(Leaflet as used at Brighton.

Dr. Newsholme, Medical Officer of Health).

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