Excerpt from Hygiene of Women and Children

During the last half-century or more there has been a great expansion of the whole subject of Hygiene. This has taken place both in the depth and extent of our knowledge and of our practice. When the early reformers commenced their work their efforts were directed to the improvement of the general conditions which concerned the community as a whole. They worked for, and secured, great advances in communal cleanliness - that is, in the general cleansing of the streets, improvement in the water-supply and drainage, and also in the methods of dealing with infectious disease. It was, in fact, mainly with a view to the prevention of epidemics that they pressed for the amelioration of the other conditions. The latter part of last century witnessed the consolidation of a number of Public Health Acts and the development of the legal powers necessary for communal hygiene by the formation of Local Sanitary Authorities.

The first step, therefore, was that of undertaking for the people of any district work which, from its nature, could not be undertaken by any one individual, but required the collective efforts of the community. The present generation is apt to take communal hygiene for granted, and perhaps hardly realizes how much has been accomplished. Unfortunately, it is necessary to add that a very great deal remains to be done, especially in some of the great industrial towns and in the rural parts of many counties. We know the advantages of good sanitation, anyone can see them for himself, since it is usually provided in the residential areas of those towns whose poorer areas are in great need of improvement.

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