A Handbook of Health by Woods Hutchinson (learn to read books .txt) 📖

It takes him about two weeks to hatch and get away from these breeding places; so that if everything of this sort is cleaned up carefully once a week, or if, where manure heaps and garbage dumps have to remain for longer periods, they are sprinkled with arsenic, kerosene, corrosive sublimate, chloride of lime, or carbolic acid, he will perish and disappear as surely as grass will if you wash away the soil in which it grows. The presence of a fly means a dirty house or a dirty yard somewhere, and to discover a fly in your house should be considered a disgrace. Until people are aroused to the need of such cleanliness as will make flies disappear entirely, in most places it will be necessary, as warm weather approaches, to screen all doors and windows, and particularly all boxes, pantries, or refrigerators in which food is kept. If you cannot afford screens, use fly paper. These are all, however, only half-way measures and will give only partial relief. The best prevention of flies is absolute cleanliness. No dirt, no flies.

Dust, a Source of Danger. Dust is an easily recognized form of dirt. It is dangerous in itself and nearly always contains germs of one sort or another mixed in with it. Shops and factories whose processes make much dust are usually very unhealthy for the workers, who are likely to show a high death-rate from consumption.

Dust should be fought and avoided in every possible way. City streets should have good modern pavements,—preferably asphalt or some crude petroleum, or sawmill-waste, "crust," or coating,—which will not make any dust, and which can be washed down every night with a hose. In smaller towns where there is no pavement, dust may be prevented by regular sprinklings during the summer, preferably with some form of crude oil. Two or three full sprinklings of this will keep down the dust for the greater part of the summer.

If these measures are properly carried out, they will prevent most of the dust that accumulates in houses, as nearly all of this blows in through the windows or is carried in on shoes or skirts. When this has once floated in and settled down upon the walls, furniture, or carpets, be very careful how you disturb it; for, as long as it lies there, it will do you no harm, however untidy it may look. The broom and the feather duster and the dry cloth do almost as much harm as they do good; for while they may remove two-thirds of the dust from a room, they drive the other third right into your nose and throat, where the germs it contains can do the most possible harm. Dusting should always be done with a damp cloth; sweeping, with a damp cloth tied over a broom; and, wherever possible, a carpet sweeper, or, better still, a vacuum cleaner, should be used instead of a broom.

Carpets, window curtains, and any hangings that catch dust should be abolished—rugs that can be rolled up and taken out of doors to be shaken and beaten should be used instead; and too many pieces of bric-à-brac and ornaments should be avoided. All surfaces of walls, ceilings, and floors should be made as smooth and hard and free from angles, ledges, and projecting lines as possible. The colds usually caught by members of the family during "spring cleaning" are usually due to the swarms of germs stirred up from their peaceful resting places. Let those sleeping germs lie, until you can devise some means of removing them without brushing, or whisking, them straight into your nostrils.

Ordinarily, Accidents are not Serious. Accidents will happen—even in the best regulated families! While taking all reasonable care to avoid them, it is not best to worry too anxiously about the possibility of accidents; for a nervous, fearful state of mind is almost as likely to give rise to them as is a reckless and indifferent one. Fortunately, most accidents, especially with growing boys and girls, are comparatively trifling in their results, and to a considerable extent must simply be reckoned as part of the price that has to be paid for experience, self-control, and skill. To have keen senses, vigorous and elastic muscles, and a clear head, is better protection against accidents than too much caution; it is also the best kind of insurance that can be taken out against their proving serious. The real problem is not so much to avoid accidents as to be ready to meet them promptly, skillfully, and with good judgment when they occur, as they inevitably will. As the old masters of swordsmanship used to teach, "Attack is the best defense."

Luckily, healthy children are as quick as a cat and as tough as sole-leather—if they weren't, the race would have been wiped out centuries ago. Children in their play, on errands, going to and from school, and in excursions through the woods and the fields, run, of course, a great many risks. But in spite of all these dangers, the number of children killed, or even seriously injured, in these "natural" accidents, is not half of one per cent of those who die from disease or bad air or poor food or overwork.

Another cheering thing about accidents is that ninety-nine out of every hundred of them are not serious; and if you are only wise enough to know what to do—and still more what not to do—in taking care of them, you can recover from them safely and quickly. The bodies of healthy children have an astonishing power of repairing themselves. Their bones are not so brittle as those of "grown-ups"; and even when one of them is broken, if properly splinted and dressed, it will heal up in a little more than half the time required by the adult. And wounds and scratches and bruises, if kept perfectly clean, will heal very rapidly.

Probably the commonest of all accidents are cuts and scratches. So common is it for us to "bark" our knuckles, or our shins, or scratch ourselves on nails and splinters and drive pins into ourselves, or let our pocket knives slip and cut our fingers, that, if the human skin had not the most wonderful power of repairing itself,—not merely closing up the cut or the scratch, but making the place "as good as new,"—we should be seamed and lined all over our hands, arms, faces, and limbs like a city map, or scarred and pitted like a tattooed man, before we were fifteen years old. But of course, as you know, the vast majority of cuts and scratches and tears heal perfectly. They hurt when they happen; and they burn, or smart, for a few hours, or hurt, if bumped, for a few days afterward; but they heal soon and are forgotten.

On the other hand, some cuts and scratches will fester and throb and turn to "matter" (pus) and even give you fever and headache and blood poisoning. What makes the difference? It is never the size, or depth, of the scratch or cut itself, but simply the dirt that gets into it afterward. If a cut, or scratch, no matter how deep or ragged, be made with a clean knife-blade or sliver and kept clean afterward, it will never "matter" (suppurate) or cause blood poisoning. So if you know how to keep dirt out of cuts and scratches, you know how to prevent ninety-nine per cent of all the dangers and damage that may come from this sort of accident.

Not more than one cut or scratch in a thousand is deep enough to go down to an artery, so as to cause dangerous bleeding, or to injure an important nerve trunk. So, though no one would by any means advise you to be reckless about getting cut and scratched, yet it is better and safer to run some risk of cuts and scratches in healthy play when young, and learn how to keep them clean, than to grow up pale and flabby-muscled and cowardly.

How to Prevent Infection in Wounds. It is not just dirt that is dangerous,—although dirt of any sort is a bad thing to get into wounds and should be kept out in every possible way,—but dirt that contains those little vegetable bacteria that we call germs. The dirt most likely to contain these germs—called pus germs, because they cause pus, or "matter" in a wound—is dirt containing decaying animal or vegetable substances (particularly horse manure, which may contain the tetanus, or lock-jaw germ) and the discharges from wounds, or anything that has come near decayed meat or unhealthy gums or noses or teeth. This is why a cut or scratch made by a knife that has been used for cutting meat, or by a dirty finger-nail, or by the claw of a cat, or by the tooth of a rat, is often likely to fester and "run." Animals like rats and dogs and cats often feed upon badly decayed meat; and hence their teeth, or claws, are quite likely to be smeared with the germs that cause decay, and these will make trouble if they get into a wound.

Fortunately, the care of a cut or scratch is very simple and practically the same in all cases. Just make the wound thoroughly clean and keep it so until it is healed. For a slight clean cut or scratch, a good cleanser is pure water. Hold the hand or foot under the faucet or pump, and let the cool water wash it out thoroughly. If you are sure that the thing you cut it with was clean, let the blood dry on the cut and form a scab over it. If the wound is large, or there is any danger of the water of the well, or tap, having sewage in it (see chapter