The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1907-06-13
HYGENIc KITCHENS IN AMERICAN
HOTELS AND HOMES.

In addition to these sanitary advan-
tages possessed by the modern hotel,
| few of them are now built without
either steam heat or hot air furnaces,
exposed plumbing, and tiled bath
rooms.
However marked the sanitary and
architectural advantages of the hotel
I of to-day over the hotel Of a genera
tion or more ago, it is the opinion OF
sanitary experts that these health
giving, and attractive improvements
too often stop just where they should
lbegitl-that is, in the kitchen. In
| fact the average hotel kitchen seems
| to become less sanitary and less at
tractive in the ratio in which the
'front.' of the house becomes luxuri
GUS The reason for this is simple.
In these days of large hotels, conduct
| ing a hotel has become such COM
pick business, that the manager can
do little more than look through the
reports of the operating departments
and confere with his department
heads in his Office.
The scrutiny. that the landlord,
or, as was the custom in the days OF
the small hotel, when the proprietor
ran the front part' of the house and
his good wife supervised the house
keeping and the cuisine gave to the
spacious kitchen, to see that it's walls
i,o4 Af
Its wainscot was clean, and that its
floors were we'll scrubbed, the hotel
man of to-day gives to the appoint
ments of the lobby and suites; to the
works of art and antiques in the par
lors; to the equipment and floral dec
lorations of the dining room, leaving
| the kitchen to the care of the cook
and his helpers, who overworked as
they generally are and anxious to
leave the kitchen as soon as the actu-
al work of preparing and serving the
| food is finished, in turn leave the
work to a class of help which gener-
ally perform this work in a perfume
| tory manner.
The hotelman too often fails to re-
alize that of all the rooms in the
house the kitchen is the only one be-
meath his roof where the laws of san
itation are neglected, a neglect which
While insisting upon open plumbing
tiled walls and floors in the bath
rooms, he often pays but scant heed
| to the non-hygienic condition of the
walls, floors and plumbing of the
kitchen. This inconsistency however
| is passing. They have learned
enough of the laws of sanitation to
know that a clean kitchen may not be
sanitary kitchen; no more than
clear water may be pure water
They have learned too that we'll
cleaned Wainscot, we'll scrubbed
floor of kitchen may contain myr
lads of disease germs, that thrive on
the animal and vegetable spatterings
which the floor has absorbed, or
which the cracks between it's boards
have secreted.
Four things are essential to make
sanitary kitchen, light, ventilation,
exposed plumbing, and non-absorbent
washable floor and walls.
In opinion of those who have Civ
en- the matter little thought the tiled
bathroom owes its origin to aesthetic
rather than to hygienic causes.
Nothing is farther from the truth:
for, while tiles, on account of their
varying colors, their form and design.
are highly decorative, their introduce
ton into the modern bathroom was
for sanitary rather than ornamental
reasons, however beautiful the deco
ratiye properties of thing, they are
not to be compared with it's hygienic
| advantages, due to it's non-absorbent
and germ-proof qualities. The i'm
portance of a sanitary bathroom is
great, that of a sanitary kitchen is
even greater The thing eliminates
the cracks andl crevices of both walls
and floor in the modern bathroom
thus making it impossible for the
disease and death dealing germ to
find Judgment therein. The old
kitchen still exists, with it's cracks
and holes in it's walls and floor, with
it's corners, with it's crevices above
and beneath it's mop-board, with it's
knot holes, into which the accumu-
lated drippings of seething fat and
fragments of vegetable and fruits are
lodged by broom and scrubbing
brush, here to remain incrusted as
an ideal refuge for myriads of dl-
sease breeding bacteria, This old
non-hygienic kitchen is a greater
danger to the health of guests ana
employees than a dozen non-sanitary
bathrooms.
No doubt, the kitchen of the future
will be hygenic one with it's floors
and walls covered with genuine clay
tiles set in hard Genet. In this
kitchen the hose can take the place
of the scrubbing brush; and water
turned on to its glazed, crackless,
inon-absOrbent walls and floor will