FALLACIES OF HYGIENE.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXII, Issue 2791, 17 May 1911, Page 3

FALLACIES OF HYGIENE.

Sir Almroth Wright (says the Times), speaking in the Theatre Civil Service Commission, Burlington Gardens, London, on "Bacteriology and Hygiene," says that people who came together in a living community arranged that certain diseases should be suppressed, ana those came under the scope ot the law ; and it seemed to people that the epidemic diseases were the most important. Certainly they were the most dramatic. If everybody died of the same disease London would be in tears to-morrow; but as everybody died of different diseases nobody thought anything about it at all. If a man died of a microbe which had an interesting name, like sleeping sickness, it was a great deal more interesting.

He referred to the difficulty of diag-

nosing epidemic diseases, and to the personal hardship and expense ot isolation and disinfecting. He said that we had not enough knowledge to deal with those diseases. There had been a good deal of talk about catching rats, but it was an open question whether the catching of rats would stop infection. As a domestic hygiene, the present methods of dealing with dramatic epidemics were futile. There was no evidence that the man who did not do physical exercises was more liable to disease than the man who did. As to washing, there was a belief that people washed off the microbes. We did take off a certain

amount ot microbes, but we also de-

slroyed the protective skin which was all round our bodies like the tiles of a house. When one had a horny hand, no microbe could ever get near the skin. If one had a skin like a tortoise, microbes would never get through. To have a Turkish bath was to take away one's horny protection, and he objected to that. With regard to fresh air, why

was it only applied to tubercular disease ? He held it to be a dreadful superstition.. The whole ot the doctrine of fresh air required to be revised. Everybody was agreed that the epidemic diseases were due to microbes ; very few had yet appreciated the fact that non-infeotious diseases, which were the larger part of the diseases, were also due to microbes.

They heard of men who were fond of shooting banding themselves together to investigate disease in grouse, but they never heard of them doing so to investi-

gate their own diseases. In cases of outbreaks in schools, he suggested that a central institute, supported by the schools, should be formed, .and when an epidemic broke out doctors should be sent to study it. There was no good filling hospitals with people if we did not know how to treat them. Rich people surrounded themselves with all sorts of luxury, and took absolutely no interest in getting rid of the microbes that surrounded them. He had been in consultation with 21 doctors round a rich man's bed, and none ol them knew anything about him.