Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 371
which it must go.
Here the emphasis must be placed upon
individual responsibility. By no other idea can it adequately
be met. This does not mean that the principle
is different in the two cases. It does mean that relatively
perfect sanitation is possible in the country.
While I have no reservation as to the importance of
developing sanitary law with all speed and force and wisdom,
I am firmly of the opinion that it offers but a partial solution.
The most that it can do is to remove untoward conditions.
The essence of the matter is personal hygiene and
its underlying ideals. In this regard the most favored
class is not materially in advance of the less favored. The
essentials of personal hygiene are few and simple, but by
no means easy of attainment, for there is involved that
most difficult factor, self-discipline. It is absurd to seek
the possession of health in sanitary enactments. It is not
a matter of law, but of character. On the surface, this is
not very obvious. Life is so automatic, specific resistance
and vigor differ so widely in different individuals, and,
especially, cause and effect are so far separated in time, that
this picture is of necessity obscure. Nevertheless, I am
convinced that any individual can materially enhance his
health, and increase his resistance to external attack, by
judicious living. If that be true, it follows that education
and character are the cornerstone and keystone of the
structure.
Assuming this, how does it bear markedly on rural conditions?
In principle, not more than in all environments,
in practice, in promise, in possibilities, it is of immediate
significance. Self-respect and freedom are the birthright
of the farmer. They are also the basis of character. In
so far as they fail of full development, a blight is upon the
harvest.
Is it
a far cry from the fundamentals of farm life and its
psychology to health ideals? I hope so. I have no faith
in remedies less searching and remote. Let me be not