THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1869 
SCIENCE AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH 
MONG the wide range of subjects included in the 
programme of NATURE, one of the most important 
to mankind in general is certainly “the public health.” 
We propose in the following article to lay before our 
readers an account of the way in which the attention of 
different nations, at various times, has been directed to 
this matter, until at last it is beginning to be recognised as 
a necessary study for all. 
It would seem at first sight hardly necessary to spend 
words on defining the aims of a science, of which the 
name “ Health” is so expressive, but the various writers 
on the subject have not thought so, and the old formula, 
“the art of preserving the health,” has been often changed, 
Londe, apparently from a dietetic point of view, says, 
“Hygiene is the science which has for its object the 
direction of the organs in the exercise of their functions,” 
a definition which strangely limits the subject, and even 
excludes the most important and interesting part of it. 
Oesterlen, desirous of bringing into view the two great 
divisions of hygiene, calls it “that part of our knowledge 
which has to do with the preservation and furthering of 
the health of individuals on the one hand, and of the 
community at large on the other.” 
Michel Lévy says that it is “the clinical study of 
healthy man,” by which definition he wishes to individualise 
the more general one ; but even here we do not find what 
we want: indeed we prefer the original definition to all 
these alterations of it. Dr. Parkes thinks so too, for he 
says, “ Hygiene is the art of preserving health, that is, of 
obtaining the most perfect action of body and mind during 
as long a period as is consistent with the laws of life; in 
other words, it aims at rendering growth more perfect, 
decay less rapid, life more vigorous, death more remote.” 
And now we come to the extension which Bouchardat 
has given to the ordinary definition, “ Hygiene is the art 
of preserving the health.” But how can we preserve 
health? Plainly by doing our best to keep away disease. 
And how can we do this? By checking the causes of 
disease. To this end we must know these causes,—and 
here we have the grand object of hygiene ; it is the science 
which studies the causes of disease, and points out the 
means of avoiding them. 
The knowledge of causes is the great aim of all science 
properly so called, and no study ought to be honoured 
with that name which has not this end in view. 
“Prevention is better than cure” is an old proverb, and, 
what is more, a very true one, and it is prevention that 
the hygienist studies—prevention of disease of whatsoever 
kind by the removal of its causes. The means by which 
diseases are prevented are often those which answer best 
for their cure ; and here we perceive the link which joins 
hygiene with medicine, and which constitutes what we 
may call the therapeutical side of our science. 
Thus we see that hygiene takes into consideration, 
incidentally as it were, and in connection with medicine, 
the treatment of many forms of disease by methods other 
than the employment of pharmaceutical preparations— 
these methods are what Fonssagrives calls “the Hygienic 
Modificators,” and are such as exercise, baths, change of | 
NATURE ee 
employment, sea voyages, residence in a different climate 
and above all regimen, 
As the methods for the preservation of health are of the 
first importance to all human beings, we may expect to 
find provisions to this end among the writings of the 
ancients, especially in the codes of the lawgivers: and such 
is the case; take for example the writings of Moses,— 
they are replete with most excellent hygienic regulations, 
which his followers were obliged to observe under pain of 
severe penalties. 
Look at the institution of circumcision, the provisions 
for the separation of the lepers from the healthy people, 
the command not to eat swine’s flesh, the prohibition 
of the marriage of near relations. Besides these and 
many other important generalities, we find the great 
Hebrew legislator descending to the inmost details of 
family life—giving a regimen admirable in its adaptation 
to the climate of the countries for which it was intended ; 
directing the burial of excrementa and refuse matter of 
all sorts in the earth; fixing the laws of marriage, of 
concubinage, of servitude, and of all social relations. 
It is to the strict observation of these sanitary regula- 
tions that one of the best-known writers on hygiene of 
the present day, M. Michel Lévy, does not hesitate to 
ascribe the singular immunity of the Jewish race in the 
midst of fearfully fatal epidemics ; which immunity was 
so marked in the middle ages, that it brought upon them 
“accusations the most absurd, persecutions the most 
atrocious.” 
We turn now for a moment to China, and find a people 
in many respects in a very high state of civilisation, a 
people who had used the mariner’s compass ages before 
it was known in Europe; but a people who, from want of 
communication with other nations, have made no advance 
at all, perhaps, for thousands of years, who have gone on in- 
creasing in numbers at such a rate that they now form one- 
third of the population of the whole world, so that their 
country is crowded to an extent hardly conceivable. Surely 
we can learn something from them which will be of service 
to us in the management of our overgrown towns! Yes; 
in one thing at least they are our masters—they waste 
nothing ; what they take from the earth they give back 
directly to the earth ; every atom of their sewage matter 
is employed as manure ; and how otherwise would it have 
been possible for so immense a population, without any 
external resources, to live on such a comparatively limited 
portion of the earth’s surface, and to keep it fertile for so 
many centuries ? 
One of the best instances of the power of cultivation 
in improving the condition of a country is to be found in 
Lower Egypt, formerly the centre of civilisation of the 
world, now in a most abject condition: the inundations 
of the Nile, while the country was peopled with intelligent 
races, were the great source of its fertility, but are now 
the cause of the insalubrious marshes that generate the 
Plague, and make that country one of the most unhealthy 
spots on the face of the globe. 
To come nearer to our own country, let us see what 
were the hygienic conditions of ancient Greece and Rome. 
Had the practical application of the principles of public 
health anything to do with the high state of civilisation to 
which those countries rose—a state which has, in some re- 
spects at any rate, never since been equalled? Had it 
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