lis THE MICHIGAN ACADEMY OP SCIENCE. 



DOMESTIC SCIENCE IN ITS RELATION TO SANITARY SCIENCE. 



CARRIE A. LYFORD. 



Time was when a knowledge of scientific facts was confined to the 

 laboratories of men of science. In these laboratories discoveries were 

 made, facts were proven, and laws were formnlated wliich have gradually, 

 yet radically, altered the life of the hnman race. How gradually only 

 the scientists themselves know, for others can realize little of their weary 

 honrs of labor, nav. vears of toil, which have been necessarv to l)ring 

 about any definite action. But how radically even the uninitiated can 

 feel — for all can look back on the primitive methods of life when little 

 was known of the sciences and when the wonderful aid of their magic 

 could not be invoked. It is not necessary that the glance be wholly 

 a backward one, which is to show us the primitive methods of life — 

 even at present we can find certain classes of people and various methods 

 of labor which have been little afi'ected by the truths of scientific laws. 

 Not because these laws could not affect them, were they understood, but 

 the people themselves have not been reached by the scientists, the methods 

 of labor have not been studied as have those which are more distinctively 

 of a business or financial nature. 



While the first incentive to scientific study seems to have always been 

 the result of singular phenomena awakening special interest in minds of 

 an investigating and inquiring nature, the pursuit of the study of the 

 sciences has undoubtedly been much encouraged by many material con- 

 ditions, — the desire to add to the comforts and conveniences of life, to 

 facilitate business, to perfect navigation, to establish methods of com- 

 munication between different peoples, increase the means of commerce, 

 and so on without limit. So, to a certain extent, scientific knowledge is 

 no longer confined to the laboratory or to the scientist who labors in the 

 laboratory. More and more the outside world is being admitted into those 

 secrets of nature which the scientist can reveal. Nor is this diffusion of 

 knowledge accompanied with a weakening of the helpful spirit of re- 

 search which i^romotes true study. Rather it furnishes it with countless 

 fields of labor formerly unsuspected. One by one are these being entered 

 upon and investigated. The "division of labor" is not a principle laid 

 aside in the scientific world. Each student turns to that field which 

 most interests him, or in which he feels himself most needed, and yet the 

 sum of them is not all exhausted. 



Singularl}' enough, those things with which we areanost intimately 

 concerned so often, seem to be the things least affected by our increasing 

 skill or knowledge. Why that should be so it would baffle even a scientist 

 to tell us, but that it is so we must recognize, even though we do so with 

 hesitation and reluctance. So frequently the things Avhich we do with 

 our hands are too hopelessly remote from the thoughts with which we 

 occupy our minds. The chemist mux occupy his working hours with 

 an investigation of the boiling point of a certain liquid, or the tempera- 

 ture at which it freezes, or he may be testing its power to unite with 



