360 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Oft. DoC. 



Tliink of the poor, ragged little urchins in the tenements, who live 

 mostly in the filthy streets. How siirxjrised and delighted they are, 

 when some of them are for the first time brought to the country for 

 fresh air! They have been known to ask if this is not Heaven. No 

 wonder they ask so startling a question. They have never seen the 

 green fields and woods, much less have they run about in them, lis- 

 tening to the singing of the birds and gathering the sweet-scented 

 flowers from hill or vale. It is to them a golden opportunity, and 

 it is a sad day when the time comes for them to leave the beautiful 

 country and go back to their old haunts in the city — the place they 

 know as their home. 



Another sanitary law is cleanliness. Cleanliness is to the body 

 what education is to the mind. The beauties of one as well as the 

 other, are blemished if not totally lost, by neglect. Cleanliness of 

 the body promotes health. The pores of the skin must be kept open 

 to admit air into the body and to allow the waste matter in the form 

 of perspiration to pass out. Serious results occur if these pores are 

 allowed to clog. 



But while cleanliness of the body is necessary to health, so is clean- 

 liness in the home, in the cellar, and the surroundings of equal im- 

 portance. Many disease germs originate from decayed vegetable 

 matter or impure water, which are in some way transmitted to the 

 human system. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 

 Prevent the disease and there will be no need of cures. Hundreds 

 of people die every year from causes which might have been easily 

 prevented. 



Formally, the plague swept like a destroying flood over Europe 

 about once in ten years, and men bowed their heads and said, "It is 

 a visitation of God." They looked upon it as a "necessary evil." But 

 wiser men inaugurated street cleaning and public sanitation and as 

 a result the plague almost wholly disappeared from the world, and 

 the average length of life was increased two years. 



Cuba, since becoming a possession of the United States, has a sys- 

 tem of sanitation which has greatly lessened the ravages of yellow 

 fever, which was so jirevalent in the island while under Spanish rule. 



Cholera, Avhich is simply the penalty of filthy streets, bad drainage, 

 etc., may be controlled or entirely prevented by suitable sanitary 

 measures. 



And we might add many other instances, but it is not necessary, 

 as all have the same result in common — A proper observance of all 

 the laws of health. 



It is well to know these thing.*, but happy are we if we do them. 



