344
77. Spring infected by polluted ditch 356

RURAL HYGIENE

CHAPTER I

_VITAL STATISTICS OF RURAL LIFE_

It is commonly supposed that good health is the invariable accompaniment
of country life; that children who are brought up in the country are
always rosy-cheeked, chubby, and, except for occasional colds, free from
disease; that adults, both men and women, are strong to labor, like the
oxen of the Psalmist, and that grandfathers and grandmothers are so
common and so able-bodied that in practically every farmhouse the daily
chores are assigned to these aged exponents of strong constitutions and
healthy lives. If, however, we are honest in our observations, or have
lived on a farm in our younger days, or have kept our eyes open when
visiting in the country, we will remember, one by one, certain facts
which will persistently suggest that, after all, life on the farm may
not be such a spring of health as we have been led to believe. We will
remember the frequency of funerals, especially in the winter, and the
few families in which all the children have reached maturity. We will
remember the worn-out bodies of men and women, bent and aged while yet
in middle life.

It is worth while, then, at the beginning, to find out, if we can, just
what are the conditions of health in rural communities, in order to
justify any book dealing with rural hygiene; for it is plain that if
health conditions are already perfect, or nearly so, no book dealing
with improved methods of living is needed, and the wisdom of the
grandparents may be depended on to continue such methods into the next
generation.

_Death-rate._

The usual method of measuring the health conditions of any community,
such as a city, town, county, state, or country, is to compute the
general death-rate, as it is called; that is, the number of deaths
occurring per 1000 population. For example, in 1908, with its estimated
population of 8,546,356, there occurred in New York State 138,441
deaths, or 16.2 deaths for every 1000 population. Sixteen and two-tenths
is, then, the general death-rate for the state for that year. This
method of determining the health of a community is crude and should not
be too strictly relied upon for proving the healthfulness implied. The
rate is at best only an average, and takes no account of anything but
death, one death being a greater calamity, apparently, than a dozen
persons incapacitated from