Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-02-07
FARMERS LECTURE COURSE.
Dr. Hetritt, of the State Board Of Health,
DeIicerS q Lecture on, Hygiene.

Dr.. Hetcitt, Of the State Board Of Health,
DeIiceFS q Lecture on Hygiene.
Yesterday DR.. Charles N. Hewitt, of Red
Wing, the secretary of the state board of
health and professor of public health at
the state university, delivered lecture in
the farmers course at the university
on the ''Principle and Practice
of Hygiene as applied to the Health and
the Honor of the Farmer and His Family"
The lecture, which is the first of series of
four to be delivered by DR.. Hewitt, was
highly instructive, as will be seen from the
following synopsis:
DR.. Hewitt said that the greatest diff
Guilty in coping with epidemic diseases was
found in the farming portions of the state.
The troQbleSarose partly from competent
medical aid not being available, and large
ly from ignorance or Indifference among
farmers regarding the principles of by
giene and the necessity of observing by
gienic laws. 1t is, moreover, difficult to
maintain among the farmers
an interest in these matters,
even after being once aroused.
Hygiene,is not, as many suppose, the most
to be considered in connection with in
fectious diseases. The difference between
the death rate of cities and
the rural districts is largely
in favor of the former, and the greatest
mortality is among children. There is
nothing in the normal condition to induce
such a degree of danger to children among
the farmers. The causes are the causes
which inhere and belong in the house it
self. There are other diseases common to
adults which are more common than one
would suppose in the rural districts. One
is typhoid fever, which is endemic in Min
nesota. 1t has been commonly called
the filth disease, since it is so
closely allied to bad sanitary
conditions. Then there are the lily de-
fined ailments, such as of a general bad
feeling and lack of energy. There is the
chronic bad health. There is also the disa-
bility belonging to the farmers women in
the state. It is out of all proportion to
what one would expect. The women are
broken down and exhausted.
There is health over and above the
boly-mental health, vim and spirit. There
is lack often of this among the farming
community, which can be traced to no
physical disease by the patient.
The lecturer gave statistics showing the
normal ages of life, the average in Mime
sofa, and the causes of difference in these
averages, and showed how infectious dis
eases carried Off large proportion of the
race.
One of the most manageable zymotic
infectious diseases and the real pest of
this state, is typhoid fever, the germs of
which have been carefully cultivated in
Minneapolis for two or three years. II
has a specific discoverable character. 1t
is ''killable" and we are criminal if we do.
not kill it.
Diphtheria is specific disease, and can
be communicated by the breath from
the germ patches in the throat. The lee
turer then gave several startling illustra-
tions to the effect that the disease is one
of the most infectious with which we have
to deal.
Another form of infectious disease is
child-bed fever. Dr. Hewitt instanced the
case of a Hungarian settlement near Per
ham where not child had been born alive
for long period, the children being still
born and the mothers dying. DR.. Hewitt
investigated the matter officially at the
time and found that the disease, child-bed
fever, had been carried from house to house
by the midwife. The infection became so
widespread that when a woman in the set
element was about to be confined she par
took of the sacrament, in the certainty of
death The priest pronounced the attic |
ton as punishment on the community
for its sins. The real cause was the ignor- |
ing of hygienic laws.
The art which has to deal with all these |
diseases is hygiene. It must be divided |
into several departments. Personal hy- |
giene is one, and it is after all the basis of |
all; the very hygiene one ought to know.
There is also a hygiene for the family, for /
the town and the municipality. The posi- |
ton of the board of health is, that the |
basis of success consists in the hygienic |
education of the children and mothers. At
present people can only be reached by the
board incidentally. Bat we shall compel,
sooner or later, the introduction of the
study Of hygiene in our public schools.
The remaining lectures of the week be-
ginning with tomorrow morning at 1890, |
are as follows: The Hygiene of the farm
house as the Home: at 2:30 pm, the fourth
and last lecture, by Prof. Hewitt, on the |
Sanitary relations of the farmer to his own
class and to others, and also to the boards
of health of his town and the state; Thurs
day morning Hon. P. Baker, United States
forester. will lecture on forestry in the
Northwest; Friday at 8 o'clock a. m, the
course closes with an address by Hon. J. S.
WoodmGn, on the Mutual Relation of
American and European Agriculture"
THE COURTS.