The implementation of the “Clean and Green” campaigns in Singapore since 1965 reveals how important a role sanitation, hygiene and cleanliness plays in the development of a nation. Indeed, sanitation and public health have been major concerns for governments and ruling authorities throughout the course of history, as maintaining a sanitary city meant that disease could be managed and populations could be kept healthy and productive. The obsession over filth, cleanliness and sanitation is perhaps best exemplified through colonial medical practice, as colonial governments sought to fashion their colonies into a desired mould through the imposition of western sanitary science and colonial conceptualizations of cleanliness and hygiene. Indeed, I argue that sanitation takes on a significant political agenda in the colonies – one where colonial powers govern and wield influence over their colonial subjects through Foucault’s “biopolitics”. As Michaels and Wulf asserts, “the state has come to represent power over biological life and power over the body, an authority that controls the population, establishing law and order through the knowledge and practices of public sanitation”. This is the lens through which this essay will be viewing sanitation – as a tool of governance that serves to consolidate political agenda and legitimacy, and that explains why the domain of sanitation became such a critical part of colonial medical practice, and has lasting implications for politics even up till today.
To start off the discussion then, this paper will first address how sanitation and cleanliness came to be viewed as an important concern in medical practice, referring to the miasma theory as the basis for the increased attention towards sani...
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...dressed how and why filth, cleanliness and sanitation has become such a critical part of colonial medical practice, and its lasting legacies even up till today, where governments still employ sanitation policies to consolidate their political agenda and legitimacy, and to encourage ideal citizen behaviors and lifestyles. In his discussion of sanitation in colonial India, Pande comes to the conclusion that ‘the history of Calcutta thus seems to confirm the complex entwinement of political ideology and medical technology”. Truly, this applies not merely to Calcutta but can be observed in many countries and societies, both past and present. The discourse of cleanliness and sanitation is one that is intricately intertwined with politics, and thus the discussion of biopolitics and political ideologies cannot be discounted in any discussion on sanitation and cleanliness.
In this image, a sewage worker is seen cleaning the drainage system, with his bear hands, without the use of either any equipment’s or protection. On the first glace, the image depicts the idea of health risk, because the man is exposed to such contaminants, which for him is work. He is looking up from a dirty drain, covered in filth, which shows that he is clearly used as the subject of this image, whom we are engaged to more as he is making eye contact with its viewers. This picture only includes one person into the frame, as the other man’s face isn’t available to see in this picture, which is man that is holding the bucket. Holding a bucket either emphasise the idea that he is helping the sewage worker, either to get the dirt out or to put the dirt in the drainage system.
By the middle of the 19th Century, important urban and social reforms were underway in Latin America, which focused on improving hygiene in the cities. In this essay I will discuss the many reforms that were made to improve hygiene in the Rio de Janeiro and how most were unsuccessful, who’s fault the hygiene issues really were, how domestic servants color made them the guilty ones of carrying diseases, and how their lives became to be after they were to forgo examinations monthly.
Diet, Health, and Sanitation in Victorian England are so interrelated that it is difficult to examine one without being led to another. A.S. Wohl sums it up when he states: "It is rather commonplace of modern medical opinion that nutrition plays a crucial role in the body's ability to resist disease and the experience of the World Health Organization indicates that where sanitary conditions are rudimentary and disease is endemic (that is, where nineteenth-century conditions prevail, so to speak) diet may be the crucial factor in infection" (Wohl 56). However, there was often a vicious cycle at work in these trying times and it is difficult to point to the root causes of some of the contagion that infected people. Also there were various philosophies, some not as instructive as others, being practiced in the early part of the nineteenth century that tried to explain sanitation problems and poverty. When can see how pervasive this problem was as it made its way into much of the literature at the time. Its representation was rather grim. Works such as Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist and Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton represent the harsh reality of these conditions.
“The 1910 Report of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching… further heightened expectations for substantial improvements in the quality of medical care and in the general health of the population” ( Winkelstein, Jr., 2009, p. 44). Issues such as major medical care problems and public safety existed in US cities after industrialization. The emerging progressive era would work to correct sanitation and medical system issues which lead to the US improving conditions. Most of the U.S. population would not acknowledge that there were any problems and these institutions would try to exclude certain people from having access to any health programs. In the Progressive era issues in the healthcare and sanitation systems were improved
Interestingly, two studies of the four compared the compliance rates of HCWs in particular nurses and physicians. Sharma, Puri, Sharma, & Whig (2011) found in their study that compliance rates for hand hygiene protocols was significantly higher for physicians (50.8%) as a opposed to nurses (41.3%). In contrast, Mathai, George, & Abraham (2011) had conflicting findings in which higher compliance rates were associated with nurses (45%) in comparison to physicians (17%). Both studies had similar sample sizes and were investigated in developing countries India and Pakistan; nonetheless, language barriers and varying educational levels of different staff groups, may have influenced the understanding of the need for effective hand hygiene (Mathai et al., 2011). Of four studies, three were observational studies, which provide opportunity to question the rigour of the
The germ theory of disease elicited an image of the human body as a conveyance for many dangerous germs, making the public "germ phobic" and suspicious of dirt and bodily secretion...
In order to understand why Whitty’s argument is effectively communicated it must be noted that this article was published in the politically progressive magazine, Mother Jones. The audience of Mother Jones mostly consists of young adults, mostly women, who want to be informed on the corruptness of the media, the government and the corporate world. In order to be fully effective in presenting her points, Whitty starts her article by creating a gloomy imagery through her story of the city of Calcutta and the hard lives which its citizens live. Through her use of words such as “broken down…. Smoky streets” to describe the scene at Calcutta, she is able to create this gloomy image. She ties this gloomy story to how the population of Calcutta is the reason for the harsh living environment and how immense its population density is when compared to cities like New York. Additionally, she discusses how the increase in population has caused harsh lives for individuals in the Himalayas, the rest of India and the rest of the world. Through these examples she ties the notion that the root causes of such hard lives are because of the “dwindling of resources and escalating pollution,” which are caused by the exponential growth of humankind. She goes on to
The idea of a “civilizing mission” was demonstrated amidst the concept of ‘Social Darwinism,’ which stated that stronger nations and races dominated those weaker, either having a nation adapt and survive or subside and die out. A “repulsive degradation of humanity” was reflected upon Africans and furthermore, it was speculated “the native African is not clean enough, physically to make social intercourse with him pleasant or even hygienically safe.” Europeans considered themselves above in every way during a time in which hygiene and appearance were an obsession among whites in colonial society. Transforming colonies into Europeans held as a duty among all administrators because other races were viewed as physically weak with a demand to have a master. “ Inspectors and interpreters would view rates of illness among these workers as proof of their physical weakness, or see acts of resistance like absenteeism or work stoppages as laziness.” These deficiencies perceived by Europeans convinced the powers to civilize Africans and Asians, granting an aid to maintain the survival of outside nations and hopefully one day, in the undetermined future reconstruct indigenous peoples into a European lifestyle.
In some way, public health is seen as a modern philosophical and ideological perspective based on ‘equity’ and aimed to determine inequitable in society. It seen as a ‘science’ and ‘art’ in the sense that it deals with the cause of disease, treatment of illness as well as it involves laboratory experiments, intervention and promoting of health of the population. Winslow (1920, p. 23) defined public health as ‘the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting physical health and efficiency through organised community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control community infections, the education of the individual in principles of personal hygiene, the organisation of medical and nursing service for early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and the development of social machinery which will ensure to every individual in the community a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health. On the other hand, it is ‘the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through organised effort of society’ (Acheson, 1998; in Cowley S, 2002, p. 261).
Whitby, M., Pessoa-Silva, C., Mclaws, M., Allegranzi, B., Sax, H., Larson, E., Seto, W., Donaldson, L. & Pittet, D. (2007). Behavioural considerations for hand hygiene practices: the basic building blocks. Journal Of Hospital Infection, 65 (1), pp. 113-114. 1--8.
Thus, for the purpose of this paper, I will be describing a scenario that I witnessed where a Registered Care Aide (RCA) provided care in an inappropriate manner by means of hand hygiene and highlight the importance of infection control as a way to minimize nosocomial infections and contamination of the surrounding
During his employment as a medical official the reality of reservation life could not be ignored. Although he must have wanted to help his people there were many difficulties of the time. They were far away from Western civilization and supply to medical equipment. The epidemics of small pox, measles, and influenza were attacking the people. He could not al...
“Researchers in London estimate that if everyone routinely washed their hands, a million deaths a year could be prevented” (“Hygiene Fast Facts”, 2013, p. 1). Hands are the number one mode of transmission of pathogens. Hands are also vital in patient interaction, and therefore should be kept clean to protect the safety of patients and the person caring for the patient. Hand hygiene is imperative to professional nursing practice because it prevents the spread of pathogens, decreases chances of hospital-acquired infections, and promotes patient safety. There is a substantial amount of evidence that shows why hand hygiene is important in healthcare
Patient’s personal hygiene is a vital part of the nurse’s role. Young (1991) described cleanliness as a basic human right, not a luxury the need for the patient to physically cleansing and which would include skin, hair and nails.
London, England. The.. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine n.d., Session 5: The role of the state. in global health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, England. Ricci J.