ifmltfj  anb  Uoral  da&ermncat, 


By  FLORENCE  NIGHTINGALE. 


I  GLADLY  send  you  a  few  words  of  sympathy  and  of 
deep  interest  in  what  was  said  and  done  at  the  recent 
Bucks  County  Sanitary  Conference. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  under  the  new  law  we  shall 
see  all  that  was  vigorous  in  the  old  self-government  of  former 
times  revived  and  utilised,  together  with  all  that  can  be  added 
from  our  modern  education,  our  modern  social  life,  our 
modern  physical  development,  combined  in  the  active  service 
of  the  newer  forms  of  local  self-government  now  offered  to 
our  Rural  Districts. 

If  there  is  one  thing  more  than  another  for  which 
Intelligent  self-government  is  necessary  it  is  sanitation. 

The  laws  of  health  can  only  be  efficiently  applied 
when  there  is  cordial  co-operation  between  those  who  govern 
and  those  who  are  governed.  But  this  cordial  co-operation 
is  really  exactly  the  same  thing  as  self-government. 

Obedience  by  consent  is  poles  apart  from  obedience 
under  compulsion. 

In  some  cases  obedience  under  compulsion  is  not 
only  necessary  but  successful,  but  the  health  of  a  community 
means  the  health  of  each  member  of  it,  and  by  no  conceivable 
amount  of  compulsion  or  inspection  can  the  personal  cleanli¬ 
ness  and  personal  health  of  each  member  be  secured. 

We  look  to  local  self-government  as  the  gospel  of 
obedience  by  consent,  and  we  hail  this  gospel  as  specially 
applicable  to  the  Laws  of  Health — laws  that  come  to  us  from 
a  source  far  higher  than  that  of  any  human  law,  and  that  are 
enforced  by  a  sanction  of  pains  and  penalties,  personal  and 
vicarious,  more  terrible  than  those  invented  for  the  enforce¬ 
ment  of  any  human  code.  Nature  sends  in  her  bill.  A  bill 
that  must  be  paid  sooner  or  later,  sometimes  by  those  who 
incur  the  debt,  sometimes  by  those,  down  to  the  third  and 
fourth  generation,  to  whom  has  been  bequeathed  the 
“  damnosa  hereditas,”  and  sometimes  by  others,  strangers  in 
every  sense  but  one,  that  one  being  the  link  of  a  forced 
obedience  to  the  law  of  vicarious  sacrifice.  The  poison  that 
has  its  home  in  a  cowshed  saturated  by  filth,  the  existence  of 
which  is  a  callous  and  wilful  violation  of  a  law  old  as 
humanity  itself,  this  poison  claims  its  victims  among  the 
children  living  miles  and  miles  away,  and  the  mother  who 


would  die  to  save  her  child  is  with  her  own  hands  giving  it 
the  milk  that  has  been  poisoned  before  it  reaches  her.  Pre- 
ventible  disease  should  be  looked  upon  as  social  crime.  The 
cost  to  a  village  of  an  outbreak  of  fever  is  immense,  least  of 
all  in  doctors’  bills,  much  more  in  precious  lives  sacrificed,  in 
weakened  health  for  those  who  survive. 

The  mere  cost  of  preventing  crime  by  educating  and 
rescuing  children  is  recognised  to  be  much  less  than  that  of 
punishing  crime  and  of  maintaining  prisoners.  Money  would 
be  better  spent  in  maintaining  health  in  infancy  and  childhood 
rather  than  in  building  hospitals*  to  alleviate  or  cure  disease. 
It  is  much  cheaper  to  promote  health  than  to  maintain  people 
in  sickness.  Bad  health  and  bad  lives  are  too  often  almost 
synonymous,  while  good  health,  if  not  synonymous  with 
intellectual  as  well  as  physical  growth,  is  at  least  the  essential 
atmosphere  for  the  growth  of  every  kind  of  life,  including 
the  spiritual.  Pure  air  and  fresh  water  are  the  free  gift  given 
to,  and  stolen  away  by,  us,  the  “  perfect  gift,”  which  costs  us 
nothing,  fouled  by  us  at  its  source. 

Add  to  this  plenty  of  clean  milk,  and  you  have  the 
chief  essentials  for  physical  health  and  also  for  moral  health. 

Healthy  surroundings  and  temperance  are  linked 
together.  The  devil  of  dirt  and  intemperance  are  linked 
together.  It  has  been  said  by  -some  that  County  Councils 
have  had  no  power  in  the  past,  and  will  not  have  very  much 
in  the  future,  to  compel  those  within  their  jurisdiction  to  be 
healthy  and  cleanly  in  their  habits. 

But  we  began  by  admitting  that  from  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  compulsion  can  under  no  conditions  work  the 
changes  we  want  to  see  wrought  by  the  obedience  of  consent. 
Where  power  cannot  reach,  “  influence  ”  wins  her  way,  and 
where  the  rigid  law  stops  dead,  there  a  public  opinion,  active, 
intelligent,  and  educated  works  wonders  by  creating  obedience 
by  consent.  Here  County  Councils,  District'  Councils,  Parish 
Councils,  may  we  not  add  “  Family  Councils,”  will  all  co¬ 
operate  to  give  to  each  man  and  woman  the  chance  to  take 
his  and  her  part  in  the  great  march  forward,  onward,  and 
upward  that  is  to  lead  us  to  the  higher  life. 

F.  N. 


Poulton  &  Co.,  Printers,  ‘'Bucks  Advertiser”  OHice,  Aylesbury.