krls204 8. health n hygiene

main idea

•  “Sanitary science” strong c. 1900

• Hygiene → major public health reforms

  • State of urban industrial and rural life

  • Promoting health & healthy children

    • interest of increasing health (we still embrace this today!)

    • Cleanliness, exercise, nutrition, housing

    • Health & PE, fresh air & sunshine

• Whose health?

  • Social boundaries & inequities

  • class, sex/gender, ancestry, ability, language

Slum District: North End, Winnipeg, c. 1900

• north of railway. considered to be on the wrong side of tracks when looking at division and poverty. were immigrants, those with lower SES, little money.

• no pavement, kids are out, very dusty and muddy, horses would’ve been here. buildings are not that solid / closed environments, laundry hung and drying (very common in working class districts). chimneys (heated by coal prolly). —> slum district cause there;s an absence of lack of safety and sanitary. no pavement = poop n other stuff in the soil, most places had outhouses and not toilets, crowding too

• AND THERE’S CHILDREN GGS. they’re all looking at the camera so maybe they have never seen one before.

• lots of social interaction and being together.

a few types of diseases and illness

• General infections (pre-antibiotics era)

• Tuberculosis, influenza

• Typhoid, diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox

• Poliomyelitis, rickets, shingles

• Mumps, measles, chicken pox, rubella

• Colds, whooping cough, pneumonia

• Malnutrition (under weight)

• Social geography of epidemiology

  • who got sick and when

  • E.G. Winnipeg Typhoid Epidemic, 1904-1905

Typhoid Epidemic: Winnipeg 1904-1905 “Red River Fever”

• typhoid spread to all of the neighbourhoods, infecting kids and adults, and became a public issues with political oomph. citywide actions ands public health reform was mobilized.

• worst infections were in the poorest neighbourhoods, spread thru polluted sewage that go through everywhere. got into the drinking water too, so public health advocates, health specialists and engineers were called in to ensure that drinkingg water is pure enough to drink.

• lead to action, inquiry to improve

Montreal Public Baths and Gymnasium

• Built in 1915 to meet the need for “hygiene and cleanliness among the working population."

• clean water is first determinant for health

• montreal — public bath house + also used for recreation (there was the pool and also a gym!)

• good for those who had no access for working / clean hot water

Street Cleaning Equipment, City of Edmonton, 1912

trucks to hose down the streets, brought bylaws that banned spitting on the ground to prevent spread of tuberculosis

pateurization of milk

• Dr. Louis Pasteur

• French microbiologist and chemist (1822-1895)

• Prevention of disease

  • Bovine TB infected people as Human TB

  • tuberculosis from unpasteurized milk

• Growth of children (very important for growth at this time)

  • Dietary Calcium

  • Bones, teeth

• Public Health Inspection

Public Health Regulations: Meat Inspection

more likely to pick up on errors or risk eating meat. enforced

Sanitorium

Rest Cures, Spas, TB Hospital Treatments

• places where people could take a rest cure (place for rest, better diet + enrichment, fresh air near lakes or mountains / farther from city pollutions). this one is a hospital, and these women r recovering from TB

why bring up health education?

• Infant mortality & childhood death rates

  • 1 in 4 children died in cities (circa 1912) → higher than adults!

  • High rates of mothers dying in childbirth (orphans)

• Child welfare concerns

• Public health & public education efforts re.

  • Health education & school inspection

  • Domestic sciences

  • Physical education

  • Classes, clinics, & home visits for mothers

  • Expecting parent to foster good health

in newspapers, they had diagrams to teach health education

even if adults couldn’t read, they’d understand by pictures

the effect on the newspaper

• thousands of montreals were taking part in applying these papers to their daily life! “new awakening.” identified exhibits were free without any charges (progressive). classes for mothers, translators, could ask questions, seek medical advice,

• had a drama show with doll babies walking across the stage and every 4th baby would be scythed down (1/4 babies die!) to really embphasize the need for chance and to lower chances of mortalityy in children

health education in schools

• “You are training yourself in health because you want to be a successful citizen.”

• “The analogy of training for sport is used to interest the class…. Health is not the primary aim of life; but health contributes to usefulness & happiness & as such it is worth while to go into training for it just as it is for the athlete to go in training for a major sport.”

hygienic regimes: BC schools

• Mary Jong’s fingernails (Gleason, p. 107). Hot water?

• “Cleanliness imperative”: hygiene, discipline, surveillance

• Vancouver’s downtown east side (Gleason, p. 103-04)

• Violence, shaming, repression?

  • Dominant urban Anglo-Canadian middle-class morality

  • enforced ethno-class bias and assimilation to “hygiene”

• Gleason argues school health inspection & sanitary science reinforced dominant culture’s expectations to detriment of others

  • i.e First Nations, immigrants, working-class children

  • “legitimizing existing relations of power and confirming social boundaries” (Gleason, p. 107)

• Health imperatives today?

sunlight

• Environmental factors: sunshine and fresh air

• Sanitary Housing & Urban Planning

• Lakes, Seaside, Countryside, Mountains

• Municipal Parks & Recreation

  • Outdoor swimming pools, parks, playgrounds

    • e.g. Riverside Pool, Edmonton, 1922

• Trips & holidays for city children

  • e.g. Fresh Air Fund, Children’s Aid Society, charity

• Health, growth, recreation, citizenship