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and living in houses in which dirt is everywhere prevalent, have
been tolerated and even pitied. With the exception of children
and those persons living in "houses let in lodgings," there is
no law to punish the offender, and yet the elementary principle
on which nearly every advance in public health has been made
is on lines of greater cleanliness.
Sanitary science of to-day is the inevitable result of a most
remarkable evolution. As it has developed, and its principles
have become firmly established, it has been more and more
clearly perceived that its art and philosophy extended beyond
the individual, beyond groups or classes, over artificial limitations,
and included in its wide domain all that made for the
betterment of humanity.
When we consider the housing of the working classes we
perceive that the old days and old conceptions of disease and
health are passing away. The beliefs, selfish and ignorant,
that human beings could be crowded into humble houses destitute
of light and air, reeking with filth and swarming like
vermin, to die like vermin; that men and women working hard
must come home to such conditions; that children should be
dwarfed and maimed by their cruel surroundings; that the
distressed and destitute must be left to protect themselves
against not only want, but against the fatal diseases caused
by man's ignorance, greed and inhumanity; these beliefs are
passing away.
In new situations, vigour and enthusiasm construct higher
ethics, the practice of which elevates the plane of living, and
now the drift of scientific opinion, and to a very appreciable
degree also popular opinion, means but one thing. It means
that sanitary science has in its process of development become
a practical science and is now recognised as such. We have
learned that if we allow our neighbour to wallow in filth we
must expect to suffer some of the consequences.