tically as well as theoretically, and that this neglect is a dark spot on our civilization, which has to be removed by this generation This conviction begins just now to lay hold of ever-widening circles of society, and a certain sympathy is stirring for the interests of public health, much more than formerly. The weather seems suitable for ploughing fields which have remained untouched, and for sowing good seeds where a rank vegetation has been growing.
When a current, a general motion of men's minds, sets in toward some definite goal, then it becomes the duty of all those who are their leaders to choose the proper routes with earnestness and conscientiousness. If a good intention in behalf of some object is wrongly directed, it soon turns against the object itself; all those who allowed themselves to become interested therein turn away discouraged as soon as they believe that their good intention has been wasted to no purpose, and hence those unlimited reactions and rebounds in public opinion. I believe that I am under a moral obligation to speak out in this place. I do it here, perhaps, more confidently than anywhere else, because I feel that here I am understood. I feel it, through the very fact that I have been requested to give my lectures before this audience. The request came to me from the Committee of the Albert Society, from its exalted Lady President. The existence of the Albert Society, its organization, its functions, its efficiency, and its authority, are ample proofs that the value of hygiene is understood here.
In this place I must also acknowledge that the Saxon Government was the first in Germany to establish a Central Board of Public Health; it has also included the teaching of hygiene in the teaching of military medical science. Such arrangements appear to me to be types of the two directions which must now be taken and followed out: on the one hand, investigation, observation, and experiment; on the other, systematic personal teaching. These are the only two ways which lead to the goal.
You have been enabled to see, from that single subject I have treated, how much remains to be done and created; everything is still insufficient and incomplete, and has to be developed and determined. Think of the great chapters—air, clothing, dwelling, ventilation, heating, lighting, building-places, and soil—their relation to air and water, and their influence on the course of disease; epidemics, and protection against them; drinking-water, and its distribution among the population; alimentations and articles of food; the maintaining of different classes of men under different circumstances; dietaries; public baths; gymnastics; collection and removal of excrementitious matters and refuse from households and trades; drainage; disinfection; inspection of dead bodies and their interment; unhealthy trades and manufactories, schools, barracks, asylums, hospitals and nursing, prisons, health statistics, etc.
