Sanitation

Sanitation is the science of health, and the art of maintaining the public health and keeping off disease. The principles of sanitation, which are in many civilised communities enforced by legal enactments, have reference generally to dwellings, food and drink, clothing, and cleanliness. With regard to dwellings, sanitation would insist upon good drainage, sufficient ventilation, and the allowance of a due proportion of air to each inhabitant, the avoidance of overcrowding, especially in sleeping apartments, and the maintenance of a proper degree of warmth. As to food, it forbids the eating of decaying or improperly-cooked matter, the avoidance of eating unripe or over-ripe fruit, the suppression of adulteration, and the like. With regard to clothing, it dictates the use of woollen materials, and such as best keep up an uniform degree of animal heat; with regard to cleanliness, It advocates a plentiful use of soap and water and other similar purifiers and disinfectants both for personal and domestic purposes. One great means of lessening disease is the isolation of all patients suffering from infectious complaints. It is not always easy to reconcile the claims of the public welfare with the rights of individual freedom. Vaccination has always been a cause of heart-burning and discontent, and compulsory registration and treatment of disease is by no means an universally welcome idea.