SANITATION ON FARMS FREEMAN. 655 



well ; the buckets are handled by all kinds of hands and then carefully 

 lowered into the well for the only cleaning they ever get. The per- 

 sonal habits of the average inhabitant of a rural distict are of a char- 

 acter in keeping with the other sanitary conditions. The absence of 

 running water, and particularly hot water, make effectual cleanliness, 

 especially in cold weather, difficult, and the amount of water used per 

 capita per day is exceedingly small. 



It must, of course, be admitted that in every rural community there 

 are those of sufficient intelligence, self-respect, and ability to rise 

 above these conditions and to provide themselves with modern sani- 

 tary conveniences, but, particularly in regions where the economic 

 standard of rural life is low, these exceptions are few, and for the 

 most part conditions are as I have described them. 



Even under these conditions, amazing as it may seem, there are 

 many rural communities which are and have been for many years 

 practically free from typhoid, despite the prevalence of the disease in 

 this country. There are others in which hookworm has apparently 

 never gained a foothold, but the introduction of a single case of 

 typhoid under favorable conditions is sufficient to give rise to a wide- 

 spread outbreak of the disease, and hookworm infection, though 

 slower in its spread, is equally certain to infect the entire community 

 under these conditions. 



These conditions, then, fix the problem of the farm, if they do not 

 solve it, and indicate the direction our work must take. Proper sani- 

 tary conditions, the safeguarding of the water supply, and the instruc- 

 tion of the people as to the necessity of obeying the Scriptural injunc- 

 tion to wash before meat are not of themselves difficult, expensive, or 

 revolutionay procedures. Moreover, when we take into account the 

 fact that the carrying out of these procedures will do much to secure 

 the immunity of the inhabitants of the farm from soil-pollution dis- 

 ease, it does not seem that it would be difficult to secure their adoption. 



The problem must, of course, be attacked in detail, county by 

 county, district by district, farm by farm, and individual by indi- 

 vidual. 



It has seemed to us that in attempting to solve this problem we 

 could well take a leaf from the book of modern industrial enterprise ; 

 that the methods which have been worked out by the marvelous 

 organizations of commercial interests might well be of use in a work 

 of this kind. The problem of a man who would teach the people 

 proper sanitation is not essentially different from the problem of the 

 man who would sell them a book, or a safety razor, or induce them to 

 buy an improved churn. The proposition is a selling proposition, 

 and our forces may well be modeled on the sales force of any modern 

 industrial enterprise. 



The first question is that of advertising, or, as we are accustomed 

 to speak of it, of education. At the outset it should be insisted on 



