The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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March, 1927 The Health Bulletin 19
Cleanliness
Careful physicians and surgeons
every clay repeatedly ask the question
with reference to some article handed
them for use, "Is it clean" They do
not mean free from visible dirt, that
may be seen without asking, but they
mean, is the article surgically clean,
sterilized, free from germs. So, if every
farm home as well as every home in
town or city could be kept absolutely
clean all the time, house flies would
no longer constitute one of our public
or personal health problems. By clean
premises we mean clean and free from
all unnecessary accumulations of rubbish
of every description. The home,
the yard, in fact, the whole place and
the places of surrounding neighbors.
The use of the automobile has been
a great boon to cleanliness. House flies
do not breed around the place where
the automobile is kept unless there is
an accumulation of rubbish, old tires,
paper, rags and so on. It is therefore
necessary to keep the garage clean and
free from such accumulation.
The question is often asked, "How
far do house flies travel" The question
is of especial interest to farmers who
keep their own farms clean and the
breeding places of flies reduced to a
minimum, and yet who are troubled
with flies from careless neighbors. Dr.
Howard of the U. S. Government
Service says that house flies are strong
fliers and that it is common for flies
to travel for half mile or more when
attracted by the smell of cooking food.
He cites at least one experiment in
Texas some years ago where it was
proved that house flies may fly up to
fourteen miles. This he I'egards as
probably unusual ; but at the same
time urges care in preventing breeding
for all the farms comprising a community
if it would be free from flies.
The same author says that the house
fly alone carries thirty distinct diseases
and parasitic organisms.
Some Eradication
Measures
Absolute cleanliness.
Use of fly traps.
Use of poison.
Thorough screening (including all
open fireplaces).
A TENANT FARMER'S WIFE
AND HER COW
About the middle of January, one of
the school nurses employed by the State
Board of Health for several years, and
who has helped make history in nearly
every community in North Carolina,
was on her way to visit a school far
down on the great Central Highway
near the Georgia line. The nurse overtook
a tenant farmer and his family
moving to a new location. The head of
the family was up in front driving the
truck slowly. On the truck was loaded
the household furniture, small children,
chickens, etc. Following along behind
the truck was the man's wife on foot,
leading a fine milk cow with one hand
and carrying a large photograph in an
oval frame with a glass over it under
the other arm. The woman recognized
the nurse as she approached them, and
called out to her to please tell that
fellow who wrote the article on "Milk"
in the January Health Bulletin,
urging the tenant farmers to provide
their children with an abundant supply
of good milk, that here was one tenant
family who never failed to do that very
thing.
Keeping the well child healthy is just
as essential as bringing the seriously
undernourished child to a healthful
gain. The same general health habit
piogram is used for the healthy, the
seriously underweight and the children
whose health quotient lies between
these two extremes. Intensive feeding,
more frequent rest periods, longer hours
of sleep are given the undernourished
children, surgical correction and medical
and dental care being added to the
program whenever needed.
A perfect body is not built when
heredity gives poor fiber, weak cells and
diseased tissue. Care, food, good habits,
wholesome mental attitudes, cannot
undo all that heredity bequeathed ; but
they can build bodies infinitely better
than otherwise they could have been
and can make daily living happier and
more wholesome. Hygeia, November,
1926.