Monday 17 August 2009

Causes of swine flu?

I found this in The Whitehaven News for 28th April 1870. It is a letter from 'Carbolic Acid' attributing an outbreak of typhoid to:
1. Overcrowding
2. Partial or total want of ventilation
3. Want of sufficient light
4. Want of cleanliness in apartments
5. Living and sleeping in the same room.
6. Almost total disuse of water-closets where placed outside the house
7. The keeping of foul utensils within doors for weeks together without emptying
8. The keeping of poultry in the house, often in bedrooms
9. Sleeping on the floors of bedrooms
10. Almost total disregard for the presence of bad smells
11. The want of changes in clothing, unfrequency of washing the clothes and skin, and its consequences
12. The use and abuse of certain kinds of drink
13. The use of bad and low-priced ood
14. The Want of sufficient food
15. Irrregular habits of body, of times of eating, and of living generally
16. Recklessness in warding off first attacks of illness
17. General and almost total ignorance of the laws of health, and superstitious and erroneous ideas respecting the origin and treatment of diseases.
18. Total disgreard for almost anything and everything but a carouse* weekly or fortnightly, oftener when convenient.

Sounds remarkably good advice for avoiding swine flu and similar in 2009.

* = drinking session

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