There has been a distinct change with regard to the attitude of society toward health. A generation or two ago many people--particularly elderly females--were not ashamed of "enjoying poor health," and a delicate physique was regarded as rather incidental to the more highly cultured. To-day, although we sympathize with the afflicted, society places a premium upon a sound physique. The importance of physical exercise, of recreation and athletics for the development and maintenance of a sound body are now much more fully appreciated than they were fifty years ago. We are coming to understand that good health is largely due to habits of personal hygiene which must be instilled by the home and the school, and that without such habits the mere knowledge of sanitation and hygiene will not be generally applied. This new emphasis upon physical fitness has naturally received larger attention in the cities on account of the more unfavorable conditions of city life, while the new knowledge and appreciation of the value of health has not been so constantly forced upon the attention of rural people.
Gradually we are coming to appreciate that we have an ethical responsibility for good health, and it is even receiving a religious sanction, for we have come to know that the cause of evil behavior may be due primarily to an unsound body rather than to a perverted soul. The church has ever ministered to the sick and has supported hospitals, but to-day it is commencing to advocate the prevention of disease through sanitation and hygiene, and to preach the religious duty of fostering health and preventing sickness.
One of the principal factors in the farmer's relative indifference to health measures is the fact that he has become accustomed to think that an outdoor life and isolation from other people give him an ability to withstand sickness and he has rather gloried in his ability to throw off ordinary ailments and to withstand the physical hardship which his work often demands. He can see how health conditions may need attention in the city where people are crowded together, but he is not impressed that other causes make such diseases as typhoid and malaria much more prevalent in the open country, and that bad sanitation on a farm a mile away may cause sickness in his own family. American farmers have been educated on the nature and spread of disease by their experience with animal diseases, such as bovine tuberculosis, hog cholera, and Texas fever. If they can be interested to utilize this knowledge in the care of the health of their own families, and if they will provide health facilities for their own families equal to those which they feel necessary for their livestock, health conditions on the farm will show rapid improvement. It is not that the farmer is indifferent to the health of his family, but he has been _forced_ to have his herd tested for tuberculosis, and he faces the possibility of heavy losses if he does not have his hogs vaccinated for cholera, while he has not appreciated that by preventative agencies the better health of his wife and children may be insured and the cost of remedial treatment be greatly lessened.