The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1864-08-25
Cleanliness and Health.

That most startling results accrue among
the lowest classes especially, from due at
+ tention to matters likely to effect health,
is apparent in the very low mortality-rate
of the pauper schools placed under proper
management. In tue central London dis
trict pauper school at Hanwell, the late MIR.
Aubin succeeded III reducing the rate to
less than two per cent, Notwithstanding that
the scholars were taken from the very heart
of London, many Of them being haltstarved
stunted, scrofulous, and suffering from
ringworm and opthalmia 1t cannot be too
widely spread abroad; that the secret OF this
clever and pilianthropical superintendent
rule consisted IN the practice and malnten-
ance of extraordinary cleanliness. The eight
hundred or nine hundred children under his
care were well washed all over i'll warm wa
ter twice week, as well as down to their
waists twice day: and the younger child
rem were washed after every meal. Directly
a garment was soiled, it was changed, al
though, perhaps, it had only been worn
few minutes and in the regular way, every
elder boy was allowed three clean shirts
weekly, and frequently ottener when requlr-
ed. The profusion of clean linen caused as
many as fifteen thousand pieces to be wash
ed weekly. But the system worked Won
ders. Instead of hundred little graves being
made in the graveyard yearly, the sexton
was not called upon to dig many more than
a dozen. Far finer children In country
warehouses furnish death-rate of twelve
per cent. But this unpromising selection
with this management, yielded smaller
death-rate than the Wealthiest communities
in the land.
Thus it will be seen that the secret of the
preservation Of health lies in one word
cleanliness. This quality, long and WORTH
ly held next to Goodness, must be applied
i'll its widest sense, and be understood to
mean cleanliness in our houses, our streets
and our towns, as well as in our food, linen
and persons. Air, earth ana water, must be
kept sweet and clean and even our fires
are not exempt from influences upon health,
for we may burn substances that emit I'M
wholesome odors. Sanitary reform there
fore, resolves itself into an old, old story
The Patriarch Jacob gave the pith of it
when he commanded his household to "be
clean, and change their garments :" and
Moses only enlarged the same command
when he declared, that If a house should be
unclean, the priest should look upon it, and
cause it to be thoroughly scraped and cleans
ed and should signs Of uncleanlines again
present themselves it should be taken
down-stones, timber, and mortar, and
these materials cast out of the city upon an
uncIean place; and in the minute directions
he issued respecting repeated ablutions.-
1t will not be Of much nse to tell the story
even with its Syrian associations, to grown
up people; they know it already; but hab-
it is second nature, and it lis difficult for
them to change their. ways. Those to
whom sanitary reform must be preached,
are school-children. They should be taught
# we are dirty, we shall becom e diseased
f we sin, we shall suffer, as certainly as |
,wice two are four, and twice four are eight |
1t is in the minds Of little children that we
should SOW this seed. Cham6e1's JouraaI, |