286 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the homes where it is understood and the necessary diet and food are 

 provided. 20 



The minor ailments, such as colds and sore throats, cause even well 

 men to lose at least five days a year from their work. 21 Yet investiga- 

 tion and research are showing that these minor ailments can be con- 

 trolled in a large measure by diet. 22 Professor Fisher says that he 

 knows scores of cases in which the tendency to take cold has been al- 

 most completely overcome by diet. Such being the case it will be neces- 

 sary for those who prepare and serve the food to be cognizant of what 

 kind of food the body requires for its highest efficiency, and since as 

 society is now organized, the preparation of food is woman's work, it 

 must be possible for women to know in some way the latest results of 

 scientific research in foods and general hygiene in order to prevent 

 disease. 



Statistics tell us that misery, which represents maladjustment to 

 environment, is frequent in rural as well as in city life. " Perfect 

 health, full physical vigor and overflowing animal spirits are much 

 more rare among dependent classes than moral virtues. The prevalence 

 of ill health is due in large part of course to ignorance and the con- 

 tinued neglect of the elementary rules of personal hygiene." 23 



It is a noteworthy fact that after the destruction of the homes by 

 the San Francisco earthquake the health of the community as a 

 whole improved, due no doubt to the plain, substantial food, the out- 

 door life and the military system of sanitation, where before people had 

 been living in homes in accordance with their individual ignorance. 

 Professor Devine states also that there is great need of medical knowl- 

 edge in our homes to overcome the ravages of such diseases as the minor 

 maladies of rheumatism and colds. 24 This puts the responsibility of 

 human health on the home and the woman in the home who has charge 

 of the preparation of food, the vital welfare of mankind and hence the 

 other dependent phenomena of personality. 



Professor Devine says, in speaking of the waste of infant life, that 

 in England 10 per cent, of the babies of aristocratic families die in the 

 first year, 21 per cent, of the middle class, and 32 per cent, of the labor- 

 ing class, which facts show that the ignorance of the proper care of 

 infant life is not altogether due to poverty. 25 



Many charity workers report that the " unpreparedness of the wife 

 and mother " to make a home is often a cause of misery, because through 

 ignorance disease comes and disability, with much resultant suffering 

 and want. In these homes where the unprepared mothers try often- 



10 Ibid., p. 3. 

 21 Ibid., p. 39. 

 "Ibid., p. 40. 



23 Devine, ' ' Misery and its Causes, ' ' p. 74. 



24 Ibid., p. 84. 



26 Survey, December 4, 1909. 



