Civics and Health | by William H. Allen
No one can read this volume, or even its chapter-headings, without
surprise and rejoicing: surprise, that the physical basis of effective
citizenship has hitherto been so utterly neglected in America;
rejoicing, that so much in the way of the prevention of incapacity and
unhappiness can be so easily done, and is actually beginning to be
done.
The gratitude of every lover of his country and his kind is due to the
author for his interesting and vivid presentation of the outlines of a
subject fundamental to the health, the happiness, and the well-being
of the people, and hence of the first importance to every American
community, every American citizen.
Title | Civics and Health |
Author | William H. Allen |
Publisher | The Athenĉum Press |
Year | 1909 |
Copyright | 1909, William H. Allen |
Amazon | Civics and Health |
Louis Agassiz
"A natural law is as sacred as a moral principle"
Civics And Health
By
WILLIAM H. ALLEN
Secretary, Bureau of Municipal Research
Former Secretary of the New York Committee on Physical Welfare of
School Children, Author of "Efficient Democracy" and "Rural
Sanitary Administration in Pennsylvania," Joint Author
of "School Reports and School Efficiency"
With An Introduction By
WILLIAM T. SEDGWICK
Professor of Biology in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ginn And CompanyBoston &Middot;&Nbsp; New York &Middot;&Nbsp; Chicago &Middot;&Nbsp; London
Entered At Stationers' HallCopyright, 1909By William H. Allen
All Rights Reserved 910.4
The Athen&Aelig;Um PressGinn And Company &Middot;&Nbsp; Proprietors &Middot;&Nbsp; Boston &Middot;&Nbsp; U.S.A
- Introduction
- It is a common weakness of mankind to be caught by an idea and captivated by a phrase. To rest therewith content and to neglect the carrying of the idea into ...
- Chapter I Health A Civic Obligation
- In forty-five states and territories the teaching of hygiene with special reference to alcohol and tobacco is made compulsory. To hygiene alone, of the score ...
- Health A Civic Obligation. Continued
- 5. Children, like adults, can be interested in other people, in rules of conduct, in social conditions, in living and working relations more easily than in ...
- Chapter II Seven Health Motives And Seven Catchwords
- In making a health programme as in making a boat, a garden, or a baseball team, the first step is to look about and see what material there is to work with. A ...
- Seven Health Motives And Seven Catchwords. Part 2
- Among large numbers of persons, in city as well as country, washing the body is still a matter of instinct, a bath not being taken until the body is offensive, ...
- Seven Health Motives And Seven Catchwords. Part 3
- Anti-slum motives originated in cities where there is a clear dividing line between the clean and the unclean, the infected and the uninfected, the orderly and ...
- Chapter III What Health Rights Are Not Enforced In Your Community?
- Laws define rights. Men enforce them. For definitions we go to books. For record of enforcement we go to acts and to conditions.[3] What health rights a ...
- What Health Rights Are Not Enforced In Your Community? 2
- Table IV Perfect Score 100% Score allowed ...% File No............ Department Of Health (Thirteen Items Are Here Omitted) Dairy Inspection Division of ...
- What Health Rights Are Not Enforced In Your Community? 3
- It is a great pity that we Americans have taken so long to learn that laws do not enforce themselves, that even good motives and good intentions in the best of ...
- What Health Rights Are Not Enforced In Your Community? 4
- But to wait for contagion before taking action has been found an expensive way of learning where health protection is needed. Even when infected persons and ...
- Chapter IV The Best Index To Community Health Is The Physical Welfare Of School Children
- Compulsory education laws, the gregarious instinct of children, the ambition of parents, their self-interest, and the activities of child-labor committees ...
- Physical Welfare Of School Children. Part 2
- In looking at the teeth and throat a little wooden stick is used to push down the tongue. There should be a stick for every child, so that infection cannot ...
- Physical Welfare Of School Children. Part 3
- The only index to community conditions prejudicial to health that will make known the child of the well-to-do who needs attention is the record of physical ...
- Physical Welfare Of School Children. Part 4
- Disease centers outside of school buildings quickly register themselves in the schoolroom and in the person of a child who is paying the penalty for living in ...
- Chapter V Mouth Breathing
- If the physical condition of school children is our best index to community health, who is to read the index? Unless the story is told in a language that does ...
- Mouth Breathing. Part 2
- William Hegel, who is pictured on page 48, before his tonsils and adenoids were removed was described by his father in this way: When playing with other boys ...
- Mouth Breathing. Part 3
- Adenoids are not a city specialty. Country earache is largely due to adenoids or to inflammation that quickly leads to adenoids. In 415 villages of New York ...
- Mouth Breathing. Part 4
- The riot that occurred when the adenoids of children in a school on the East Side in New York City were removed without the preliminary of convincing the ...
- Chapter VI Catching Diseases, Colds, Diseased Glands
- Deadly fevers, the plague, black death, cholera, malaria, smallpox, taught mankind invaluable lessons. Millions of human beings died before the mind of man ...
- Catching Diseases, Colds, Diseased Glands. Part 2
- Any place where numbers of people are accustomed to assemble favors the propagation of germs, whether it be the meetinghouse, the townhall, the theater, or the ...
- Catching Diseases, Colds, Diseased Glands. Part 3
- Moreover, the child with an unclean mouth not only infects and reinfects himself but scatters germs in the air whenever he sneezes or coughs. In a cold ...
- Catching Diseases, Colds, Diseased Glands. Part 4
- In The Following Diseases Only The Affected Child Is Excluded Erysipelas. Child should not return till all swelling and peeling of skin has disappeared.
- Catching Diseases, Colds, Diseased Glands. Part 5
- A cold can always be charged to some one else. How many can be laid to our account? There is one right that is universally not recognized, and that is the ...
- Chapter VII Eye Strain
- Wherever school children's eyes have been examined, from six to nine out of thirty are found to be nearsighted, farsighted, or otherwise in need of attention.
- Eye Strain. Part 2
- Nature intended the human eye to read the last line of this card at a distance of ten feet. This conclusion is not a guess, but is based upon the examination ...
- Eye Strain. Part 3
- The limits of the card test must be constantly kept in mind: (1) it does not register eye sickness due to dust, smoke, or disease germs; (2) it does not show ...
- Eye Strain. Part 4
- The education of physician, oculist, and optician can be expedited by eye tests in school and by the follow-up work of schools in removing the prejudice of ...
- Chapter VIII Ear Trouble, Malnutrition, Deformities
- The presence of adenoids is a frequent cause of both slight and aggravated deafness. Of 156 deaf mutes examined 59 per cent had adenoids, while only 6 per cent ...
- Ear Trouble, Malnutrition, Deformities. Continued
- Nervousness In New York City one child in ninety-one already examined has had the form of nervous disease known as St. Vitus's Dance, or chorea. So prone are ...
- Chapter IX Dental Sanitation
- Have their teeth attended to first, and many of the eye defects will disappear. This was an unexpected contribution to the debate upon free eyeglasses for the ...
- Dental Sanitation. Part 2
- Apart from decomposing food and stagnant septic matter from saliva injured by indigestion, and by sputum which collects in the healthy mouth, there are in many ...
- Dental Sanitation. Part 3
- Reexamination is necessary because decay may start the day after a dentist has pronounced a tooth sound. For most of us twice a year is often enough. A ...
- Dental Sanitation. Part 4
- The result will show that the money spent for one good house cleaning of one child at fourteen or eighteen exceeds the cost of keeping clean and in repair the ...
- Dental Sanitation. Part 5
- I realize that advertising is unethical among dentists as among physicians. Humbug and imposition are supposed to go inevitably with self-advertising by the ...
- Chapter X Abnormally Bright Children
- What is commonly considered abnormal brightness in a school child is often a tendency to live an abnormal physical life. Being a child bookworm means that time ...
- Chapter XI Nervousness Of Teacher And Pupil
- Nervousness of teacher and pupil deserves special mention. So universal is this physical defect that we take it for granted, especially for teachers. Teachers ...
- Nervousness Of Teacher And Pupil. Continued
- Country nervousness, like city nervousness, is of three kinds: (1) that caused by defective nervous systems; (2) that resulting from physical defects other ...
- Chapter XII Health Value Of "Unbossed" Play And Physical Training
- A boy without play means a father without a job. A boy without physical training means a father who drinks. When people have wholesome, well-disciplined bodies ...
- Health Value Of "Unbossed" Play And Physical Training. 2
- Children have not forgotten how to play, but adults have forgotten to leave space in cities, and time out of school, home work, and factory work in which ...
- Health Value Of "Unbossed" Play And Physical Training. 3
- The answer to the protest against too early and too constant confinement in school has always been: Where will the child be if out of school? Will its ...
- Chapter XIII Vitality Tests And Vital Statistics
- Two things will disclose the strength or weakness of a bank and the soundness or unsoundness of a nation's banking policy, namely, a financial crisis or an ...
- Vitality Tests And Vital Statistics. Part 2
- To these conclusions certain others should be added, not as settled beyond any possibility of modification, but as being fairly indicated by these tests. 1.
- Vitality Tests And Vital Statistics. Part 3
- Physiological age, according to studies made in New York City, should be considered in grading, not only for physical culture classes but for all high school ...
- Vitality Tests And Vital Statistics. Part 4
- The best guarantee against such loss, the best protection of health, and the most essential element of vital statistics is prompt, complete record of cases of ...
- Vitality Tests And Vital Statistics. Part 5
- In cities where physicians are not compelled to notify the health board of danger centers, that is, of patients sick from measles, smallpox, or diphtheria, and ...
- Vitality Tests And Vital Statistics. Part 6
- Our tardiness in establishing a national board of health that shall do this great educational work is due in part to the fact that American sanitarians have ...
- Chapter XIV Is Your School Manufacturing Physical Defects?
- Last year a conference on the physical welfare of school children was told by a woman principal: Of course we need physicians to examine our children and to ...
- Is Your School Manufacturing Physical Defects? Neighborhood Health Resources
- After child labor is stopped, national and state child labor committees will learn that their real interest all the time has been child welfare, not child age, ...
- II. Effect of School Equipment upon Health
- 1. Is there an indoor yard? a. Is the area adequate or inadequate? b. Is the floor wood, cement, or dirt? c. Is the heat adequate or deficient? d. Is the ...
- III. The Class Room as a Place of Confinement
- 1. How many sittings are provided? a. How many pupils are there? 2. What is the total floor area? a. What proportion is not occupied by desks? 3. Are the seats ...
- IV. Exercise and Recreation in School
- 1. How much time and at what periods is exercise provided for in the school schedule? a. Indoors? b. Outdoors? 2. How much exercise indoors and outdoors is ...
- Is Your School Manufacturing Physical Defects? Conclusion
- By reducing the harm done by old buildings and by the traditions of curriculum and discipline, teachers can do a great deal. Perhaps they cannot move the ...
- Chapter XV The Teacher's Health
- Teachers, gentlemen, no less than pupils, have a heaven-ordained right to work so adjusted that the highest possible physical condition shall be maintained ...
- The Teacher's Health. Continued
- Because the health of others furnishes a stronger motive for preventive hygiene than our own health, it is probable that the general examination of teachers ...
- Chapter XVI European Remedies: Doing Things At School
- Recently I traveled five hundred miles to address an audience on methods of fitting health remedies to local health needs. I told of certain dangers to be ...
- European Remedies: Doing Things At School. Continued
- Would it not be nice for country children to know that toward the end of the school year they would be given an excursion to the largest city of their state, ...
- Chapter XVII American Remedies: Getting Things Done
- In New York City there is a committee called the Committee on the Physical Welfare of School Children. The word welfare was used rather than condition because ...
- American Remedies: Getting Things Done. Part 2
- No one was clear as to how the problem was to be solved by small cities and rural districts, whose needy children are no less entitled to public aid simply ...
- American Remedies: Getting Things Done. Part 3
- From twenty such statements of fact and from its experience in getting things done for one year, the committee drew fifteen practical conclusions, among which ...
- Chapter XVIII Cooperation With Dispensaries And Child-Saving Agencies
- Scientists agree that the human brain is superior to the animal brain, not because it is heavier, but because it is finer and better supplied with nerves. As ...
- Cooperation With Dispensaries And Child-Saving Agencies. Continued
- Another little girl was nine years old, but could not talk. A University Extension Society worker found that she was not kept at school because it was too much ...
- Chapter XIX School Surgery And Relief Objectionable, If Avoidable
- The popular arguments for free meals, free relief, free medical treatment at school, are based upon the assumption that there are but two ways to travel, one ...
- School Surgery And Relief Objectionable, If Avoidable. Continued
- Do we want to make of our schools miniature hospitals, dispensaries, relief bureaus, parks? Or shall we use the momentum of society's interest in the school ...
- Chapter XX Physical Examination For Working Papers
- There is no sacred right to work when our work involves injury to ourselves and to our neighbor. Work at the expense of health is an unjustifiable tax upon the ...
- Physical Examination For Working Papers. Part 2
- So great is the risk of defective, sickly, or intemperate employees, that in some trades employers take every precaution to exclude them. One man with ...
- Physical Examination For Working Papers. Part 3
- She is told that other people breathe through the nose, and that perhaps the reason she dislikes school and does not feel as she used to about play is that she ...
- Chapter XXI Periodical Physical Examination After School Age
- Governor Hughes, in his address to the students in Gettysburg College, pleaded for such lives that strength would be left for the years of achievement. How ...
- Periodical Physical Examination After School Age. Continued
- If the periodic visit to the doctor is the first law of adult health, still more imperative is the law that competent physicians should be seen at the first ...
- Chapter XXII Habits Of Health Promote Industrial Efficiency
- Education's highest aim is to train us to do the right thing at the right moment without having to think. The technic of musician, stenographer, artist, ...
- Habits Of Health Promote Industrial Efficiency. Part 2
- What are the health habits that should become instinctive and effortless for every worker? What acts can we make our lower nerve centers our subconscious ...
- Habits Of Health Promote Industrial Efficiency. Part 3
- Health habits do not become instinctive until a continued, conscious effort is made to accustom the body to them. When this is once done, however, the body not ...
- Chapter XXIII Industrial Hygiene
- To call the movement for better factory conditions the humanizing of industry implies that modern industry not influenced by that movement is brutalized. The ...
- Industrial Hygiene. Part 2
- The hygiene of the workshop is not the same problem as the hygiene of the home and schoolhouse, because there are by-products of factory work that contaminate ...
- Industrial Hygiene. Part 3
- Until employees are more active as citizens and more sensitive to hygienic rights, it is desirable that welfare directors be employed in factories to arbitrate ...
- Chapter XXIV The Last Days Of Tuberculosis
- If the historian Lecky was right in saying that the greatest triumphs of the nineteenth century were its sanitary achievements, the Lecky of the twenty-first ...
- The Last Days Of Tuberculosis. Part 2
- Rest out of doors is the medicine that cures consumption. Absolute rest for mind and body brings speedy improvement. It stops the cough and promotes the ...
- The Last Days Of Tuberculosis. Part 3
- Three fundamental rules of action should be established as firmly as religious principles: 1. The public health authorities should be told of every known and ...
- The Last Days Of Tuberculosis. Part 4
- Compulsory removal of careless consumptives is yet rare. One obstacle is the lack of hospitals. In New York ten thousand die annually from tuberculosis and ...
- The Last Days Of Tuberculosis. Part 5
- Dry cleaning, feather dusters, dust-laden air, will disappear from schoolrooms within twenty-four hours after school-teachers declare that they shall disappear.
- The Last Days Of Tuberculosis. Part 6
- III. The Social Control of Tuberculosis 1. Outline of a comprehensive programme for: a. National, state, and municipal governments. b. Departments of health ...
- The Last Days Of Tuberculosis. Part 7
- VII. Promotion of Immunity 1. Development of the conception of physical well-being. 2. Measures for increasing resistance to disease: a. Parks and playgrounds.
- Chapter XXV The Fight For Clean Milk
- With the approval of the President and with the cooperation of the Department of Agriculture,[15] the [national quarantine] service has undertaken to prepare a ...
- The Fight For Clean Milk. Part 2
- Unfortunately Hartley and his contemporaries had never heard of disease germs that are carried by unclean milk into the human stomach. Science had not yet ...
- The Fight For Clean Milk. Part 3
- As elsewhere, there are two schools of pure-milk crusaders: (1) those who want cities to do things, to pasteurize all milk, start milk farms, milk shops, or ...
- The Fight For Clean Milk. Part 4
- The getting things done school admits the need for modified milk of strength suited to the infant's stomach; affirms the danger of milk that contains harmful ...
- Chapter XXVI Preventive "Humanized" Medicine: Physician And Teacher
- No profession, excepting possibly the ministry, is regarded with greater deference than the medical profession. Our ancestors listened with awe and obedience ...
- Preventive "Humanized" Medicine: Physician And Teacher. 2
- Dr. Hermann M. Biggs says that in America the greatest need of the medical profession and of health administration is training that will enable physicians and ...
- Preventive "Humanized" Medicine: Physician And Teacher. 3
- Osteopathy furnishes an up-to-date illustration. Discredited by the medical profession, by medical journals and medical schools, it has in fifteen years built ...
- Preventive "Humanized" Medicine: Physician And Teacher. 4
- Many American cities maintain dispensaries and hospitals for the poor. Whether they will go to the logical conclusion of engaging physicians to give free ...
- Chapter XXVII Departments Of School Hygiene
- The term school hygiene generally suggests no other school than the public school. State laws say nothing about compulsory hygiene in military academies, ...
- Departments Of School Hygiene. Part 2
- 4. Supervision by physicians of hygiene practiced in schoolrooms and on playgrounds. Superintendent Maxwell, of New York City, and other educational leaders ...
- Departments Of School Hygiene. Part 3
- What and when to build can be better determined after we have learned the what and the where of present equipment. In passing it is worth while to note that in ...
- Departments Of School Hygiene. Part 4
- III. County Machinery 1. Clearing house for facts regarding school hygiene taught and practiced in all schools within county limits; this to be maintained by ...
- Chapter XXVIII Present Organization Of School Hygiene In New York City
- Many of the elements of the machinery outlined in the preceding chapter already exist in New York City. All of them brought together, either by amalgamation or ...
- Present Organization Of School Hygiene In New York City. Continued
- The Bureau of Municipal Research made its study for the purpose of learning whether the disappointing results emphasized by the school authorities were due to ...
- Chapter XXIX Official Machinery For Enforcing Health Rights
- The argument for getting things done presumes adequate active machinery, official and private, for doing things that schools are being urged to do. The chapter ...
- Official Machinery For Enforcing Health Rights. Continued
- Local health machinery should guarantee protection against the evils mentioned in preceding chapters. In general, one man is better than three to execute, ...
- Chapter XXX School And Health Reports
- For every school-teacher or school physician responsible for the welfare of children at school, there are fifty or more parents responsible for the physical ...
- School And Health Reports. Part 2
- The mere reporting of facts will stimulate teachers, principals, and parents to give attention. For example, assume a table: Field of Inspection Total number ...
- School And Health Reports. Part 3
- The story of noncontagious physical defects found and treated is set forth in the following table: Table XIV Medical Examination of School Children: ...
- School And Health Reports. Part 4
- The Connecticut report makes a serious mistake in failing to arrange schools according to population. If this were done, schools of a size would be side by ...
- Chapter XXXI The Press
- The president of Princeton University declares that for several decades we have given education that does not instruct and instruction that does not educate.
- The Press. Continued
- While it is true that the most important bibliography one can have in his private library is a classification of the material of which he himself has become a ...
- Chapter XXXII Do-Nothing Ailments
- Men have died, from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love nor for work. Work of itself never killed anybody nor made anybody sick. Work has ...
- Do-Nothing Ailments. Continued
- Both mind and body were made to work. The function of the brain is to think to a purpose, just as the function of the heart is to pump blood. The habit of ...
- Chapter XXXIII Heredity Bugaboos And Heredity Truths
- One of the red-letter days of my life was that on which I learned that I could not have inherited tuberculosis from two uncles who died of consumption. For ...
- Heredity Bugaboos And Heredity Truths. Continued
- The commission hoped that the facts and opinions they have collected will have some effect in allaying the apprehensions of those who, as it appears, on ...
- Chapter XXXIV Ineffective And Effective Ways Of Combating Alcoholism
- Wherever the Stars and Stripes fly over school buildings it is made compulsory to teach the evils of alcoholism. For nearly a generation the great majority of ...
- Ineffective And Effective Ways Of Combating Alcoholism. 2
- A score of improvements in the method of carrying out a small ideal will not take the place of enlarging that ideal. If existing laws stand in the way of ...
- Ineffective And Effective Ways Of Combating Alcoholism. 3
- It is impossible to keep emotion, sensation, sentiment, at white heat. Most extremists worship legislation and do not try to keep interest alive by telling ...
- Ineffective And Effective Ways Of Combating Alcoholism. 4
- The regulation of the liquor business involves fundamental questions of the function and scope of government, and there is hardly any department of organized ...
- Ineffective And Effective Ways Of Combating Alcoholism. 5
- What has been the effect of limiting the number of saloons? Should limitation be according to area or to population? Is there any relation between the number ...
- Chapter XXXV Is It Practicable In Presenting To Children The Evils Of Alcoholism ToTell The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth?
- If children are taught that the most effective way of combating alcoholism is to insure the enforcement of existing laws and to profit from lessons taught by ...
- Is It Practicable In Presenting To Children The Evils Of Alcoholism ToTell The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth? Continued
- Thus the insurance companies' rules touch only the confirmed drinker, whose physique is often irreparably injured. One company writes: Men who have been ...
- Chapter XXXVI Fighting Tobacco Evils
- It is not necessarily vicious or harmful to soothe excited nerves. This editorial comment explains, even if it condemns while trying to justify, the tobacco ...
- Fighting Tobacco Evils. Continued
- The anti-nuisance motive follows closely upon the drawing of sharp lines of time and place for the use of tobacco. Like treason, smoking in the presence of ...
- Chapter XXXVII The Patent-Medicine Evil
- Dhrugs, says Dock O'Leary, are a little iv a pizen that a little more iv wud kill ye. Ye can't stop people fr'm takin' dhrugs, an' ye might as well give thim ...
- The Patent-Medicine Evil. Part 2
- Besides the classic patent medicines, such as Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, Castoria, Cod Liver Oil, etc., there are Colds Cured in One Day, Appendixine, ...
- The Patent-Medicine Evil. Part 3
- Overexposure is ineffective. It is the evils of patent medicines that do harm, not their name and not their patents. The medical profession has in vain ...
- Chapter XXXVIII Health Advertisements That Promote Health
- It is usually considered futile to attempt to defeat the devil with his own methods, because he knows so much better how to use them. But abuse does not do ...
- Health Advertisements That Promote Health. Continued
- So clever are these methods of advertising and so successful are they in reaching great numbers of people, that if reputable physicians would take lessons of ...
- Chapter XXXIX Is Class Instruction In Sex Hygiene Practicable?
- Among remedies for preventable disease and preventable poverty, the following was urged at a national conference for the betterment of social conditions: We ...
- Is Class Instruction In Sex Hygiene Practicable? Continued
- Once having made up our minds to concentrate the teaching of sex hygiene upon sex health rather than upon sex immorality, upon sex functions rather than upon ...
- Chapter XL The Element Of Truth In Quackery; Hygiene Of The Mind
- Patent medicines and other forms of quackery could not pay such enormous dividends unless there was some truth in their claims; unless their victim found some ...
- The Element Of Truth In Quackery; Hygiene Of The Mind. Continued
- Quacks often get social and economic results more agreeable to the patient and more helpful to society than orthodox medicine. When traitors become numerous ...
- Chapter XLI "A Natural Law Is As Sacred As A Moral Principle"
- When a grammar-school boy I learned from the game Quotations that Louis Agassiz, scientist, had written the sentence with which I introduce a final appeal for ...
- "A Natural Law Is As Sacred As A Moral Principle". Continued
- By using numerous tests which have been suggested in preceding chapters we can learn how far we and our communities obey natural law when working and playing.