THE TASKS OF PUBLIC OR SOCIAL HYGIENE. — The most rapid progress of hygiene, which began in England, led to the establishment of institutions of various kinds in all civilized nations, some through private initiative and others under the care of the States.
In Italy, the Pontifical Assistance Commission, the Italian Red Cross, the Maternity and Infancy Organization, and various insurance institutions are particularly effective. More recently, the World Health Organization (O.M.S.) has also been established.
The fields of action of social hygiene are numerous:
1. Study of the condition and movement of the population
Investigations must be conducted with broad-based statistical controls, and the deductions must be compared with those of other nations and with information drawn from the experience of past times. It has been observed, for example, that in many nations there is a considerable excess of the female population over the male. This may be prejudicial to public health and morality because many men remain unmarried, finding it easy to satisfy their sexual desire without assuming the obligations and burdens of married life; prostitution also increases, the number of illegitimate children grows, and finally there is an increase in venereal diseases, harmful both to those who contract them directly and to their offspring. It has also been observed that in many nations the race is undergoing progressive aging as a result of declining birth rates and an increase in the average length of life.It is the task of social hygiene to indicate the means of remedying, insofar as possible, the consequences of these two phenomena.
2. Working conditions. — Excessive working hours, activity carried out in unhealthy environments without adequate safeguards, inadequate remuneration, and the employment of female labor to the detriment of male labor may, depending on the circumstances, cause harm to health (an increase in tuberculosis), the disintegration of families (the woman does not attend to the proper running of the household), declining birth rates, unemployment, nervousness, agitation, and even social disturbances.
3. Nutrition. — Social hygiene studies it in relation to the caloric, vitamin, and mineral requirements of populations and of the worker.
Unhealthy and insufficient nutrition may have its basis in economic factors, local customs, or a particular way of life that makes it difficult to follow the rules of healthy nutrition. Depending on the circumstances, its consequences include tuberculosis, osteomalacia, rickets, deficient fetal development, deficient somatic and psychic development in the child, asthenia, many metabolic diseases, etc.
4. Housing. — The housing problem is of great importance because, in order to preserve his health and to be stimulated to work, man needs space, greenery, sunlight, and quiet. Inadequate housing causes, among other things, overcrowding, which is harmful to the physical and moral health of populations.
5. Clothing. — Social hygiene points out the harm caused by certain styles of clothing (corsets, tight belts, unsuitable shoes) and studies the types of dress most appropriate to the various categories of workers. Because of its connections with moral hygiene, it also promotes the formation of an ethical conscience that shuns the use of clothing which improperly arouses sensuality: everyone has the right to prefer the clothing he likes, but when appearing in public he must feel obliged to respect the moral conscience of others.
6. Recreational activities. — Sport in all its manifestations (swimming, rowing, ball games, racing, excursions, tennis, etc.) falls within the tasks of social hygiene because it educates people in cleanliness, order, and discipline, and improves health by imparting freshness and energy to the organism.
It is also the task of social hygiene to provide wholesome joys, by fostering religion, which pacifies the spirit, and by encouraging the joy of work. Psychotherapy assists social hygiene by indicating the activities for which a person seeking employment is best suited; it is well known that the appropriateness of one’s aptitudes to the work assigned is one of the most important factors in the joy of work.
7. Eugenics. — This must be studied in the light of progress in the biological and social sciences, without fanaticism and with full respect for the human person.
The harmful effects on offspring of certain infectious diseases and certain chronic intoxications are well known; it is also known that the advanced age of the mother may cause weakness in her children; that conception in a state of drunkenness may adversely affect the product of conception; that marriage between carriers of hereditary defects of the same kind risks transmitting analogous defects to their children; that marriages between persons belonging to different regions are preferable (whereas marriage between persons of different races gives rise to inferior offspring); and that having only one child is not eugenically advisable, etc.
On the basis of these general principles, social hygiene turns its attention to the protection of mothers, newborn infants, and children, and then to adolescents and young people, promoting institutions suited to safeguarding the physical and moral health of families and of each of their members.
It then carries out its action on behalf of workers, whom it protects from excessively long working hours, unhealthy working environments, the effects of toxic substances in unhealthy industries, excessive noise, etc.
It also studies the action of the social environment in the emergence and spread of certain particularly dreaded diseases, such as plague, cholera, leprosy, typhus, smallpox, tuberculosis, venereal diseases, and certain especially harmful intoxications such as alcoholism, morphinism, and cocainism; it therefore examines the problem of prostitution, which still awaits a solution, since both regulation and abolition have proved equally ineffective.
Another task of social hygiene is to provide for the prevention of mental illnesses, in whose genesis congenital predisposition and many toxic or environmental causes are important.
Finally, social hygiene ensures that effective health legislation is implemented for the protection of the citizen’s health (insurance against illness and, in particular, against tuberculosis); for the protection of the worker (insurance against occupational accidents, provisions for the prevention of accidents, for the healthfulness of working environments, and for compliance with regulations concerning working hours); for protection against occupational diseases; and for protection against disability and old age, etc. To this end, it organizes study centers, consultation services, hospitals, convalescent homes, maternal dining halls, nurseries, kindergartens, open-air schools, foundling homes, homes of redemption for the morally wayward, etc.
In its complex work, social hygiene must bear in mind the immutable norms of moral law and must be animated by that spirit of true charity which recognizes the rights of others and teaches respect for them.