SANITARY SCIENCE 236 SAN JOAQUIN the public funds appropriated to fur- ther health measures. All conditions affecting health have increasingly be- come the subject of intense study and a large amount of knowledge based upon experience and experiment is now avail- able. As in all matters which involve consideration of living things there is still much which is uncertain, and with the scientific knowledge there is inter- mingled much supposed knowledge based merely upon tradition and insufficient experience. Great changes are taking place, such as the increasing industrial- ism bringing with it the depletion of the rural population and the increase of the urban, the greater facility of transpor- tation increasing the range of the en- vironment, and the full effect of such changes upon the general health cannot yet be fully ascertained. There is still lacking such information of the condi- tions in the past as to afford a proper basis for comparison with the present. We do not accurately know whether or no the general health of the people has been affected by the influence of mod- ern conditions. From such statistics as have been gleaned from the medical examination of large numbers of drafted men in the late war, the figures show a large percentage of individuals who have become defective through disease. These statistics represent the general health of the males of military age in the state. In Great Britain the medical examinations have shown that of every nine men there were three perfectly fit and healthy; two were upon a definitely infirm plane of health and strength, whether from some disability or failure of development; three men were incapa- ble of undergoing more than a very moderate degree of physical exertion, and could in justice to their age be de- scribed as physical wrecks, and the re- maining man was a chronic invalid with a precarious hold upon life. This ex- amination brought out also the effect of occupation upon health, the agricultural population having the best showing, with a decided fall in the industrial occupations, culminating in the tailors and barbers. The examination of the drafted men in the United States showed that in the total male population of mili- tary age there were four hundred and sixty-five defective individuals of every thousand examined. Although these ex- aminations were of males only, there is no reason to think that the females would have made a better showing, for the causes act upon all alike. Certain districts in London, where overcrowded and bad hygienic conditions notoriously exist, showed an enormously higher per- centage particularly of respiratory dis- eases, affording a striking illustration of the baneful influence of bad environ- mental conditions in relation to these particular diseases, and in almost every other disease these black list districts showed a higher percentage than did the normal areas. The numerical regis- tration and tabulation of population, mar- riages, births, diseases and deaths, with analysis of the resulting phenomena is not of recent origin, but the develop- ment of their present form and the ac- curacy attained is comparatively mod- ern. There is difficulty always in the carrying out of laws, the necessity for which is not perfectly understood. They are not efficient without the co-operation of the people, and this co-operation can be attained only through education. For this purpose the instruction of^ school children in the elementary principles underlying health preservation, and in- culcating in them good habits of life is of the utmost importance. The care of these children during school attend- ance is assumed by the state, and their education in measures of health control is not less important than the other branches of study. SANITATION, that department of human knowledge which regards the laws of the human body, and of the agents by which it is surrounded, with a view to the preservation of health and the warding off of disease and death. The practical application of these laws constitutes hygiene, or the art of preventing disease. See Sanitary Sci- ence. SAN JACINTO, BATTLE OF, a nota- ble battle that decided the independence of Texas. It was a desperate engage- ment between a Mexican force in com- mand of Santa Ana, 1,600 in the ranks, and 783 Texans led by Sam Houston, April 21, 1836. The Mexicans were defeated and utterly routed. The scene of this event was on the banks of the San Jacinto river, 17 miles E. by S. of the present city of Houston. SANJAK (Turkish, a standard), the name given to a subdivision of an eyalet or minor province of Turkey, from the circumstance that the governor of such district is entitled to carry in war a standard of one horse-tail. SAN JOAQUIN, a river of California, 350 miles long; rises in the Sierra Ne- vada mountains, in Fresno county, flows S. W. about 70 miles, then N. W., and unites with the Sacramento near its mouth in Suisun Bay. Tulare Lake dis- charges into it at high water. It is navigable at all seasons by vessels of from 150 to 250 tons to Stockton, about
