HYGIENE OF THE FARM. 71 



Evening Session. 

 The meeting was called to order at seven o'clock to listen 

 to a lecture on the 



HYGIENE OF THE FARM. 



BY EDWARD HITCHCOCK OF AMHERST. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — The subject on which I am 

 requested to express a few thoughts to you this evening 

 needs no plea for its importance. No sane, no honest person 

 desires to be sick or injured, or pretends to be in the bonds 

 of physical or mental disease. And yet there are some diffi- 

 culties in presenting this subject even to so enlightened an 

 audience as the present one. For personal and home health 

 and comfort are matters about which almost all persons have 

 some definite and positive ideas, acquired by their own man- 

 ner and methods of life, and, if they are getting on in life, 

 they have had them for years ; and we all are mightily 

 influenced by our personal experiences ; and advice offered 

 contrary to these is received with an ill grace by almost 

 everybody. 



When we are thoroughly sick, disabled, or injured materi- 

 ally, most of us are apt and willing to put ourselves in the 

 hands of our physician, and are anxious to follow his ad- 

 vice, even if we have to borrow money to do it. There are 

 cases where no previous knowledge or experience has been 

 gained by us : we are seized by pain or distress which we 

 cannot relieve, and we are ready at once to run for the doc- 

 tor, who, we believe, can help us. We feel that he has 

 skill, knowledge, and experience which may give us relief, 

 and implicitly follow his directions. 



So much when we are diseased, — when we know we are in 

 the hands of a potent, and it may be malignant influence; 

 when we can see, feel, and know, that certain parts of us 

 are decidedly in disorder or distress ; when something out- 

 side of ourselves must be done, and that immediately. And 

 when we feel that some drug, some instrument, or some 

 knowledge, will give relief, how ready we are to seek it!* yes, 

 how credulous we are even to paying our money out freely 

 for patent-medicines, or to the man who advertises the loud- 



