Health for the Americas - Cleanliness Brings Health (1945)
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FunTranscript
00:00 [THEME MUSIC]
00:03 [THEME MUSIC]
00:06 [THEME MUSIC]
00:35 This is a story of two families, one of them happy,
00:41 one of them sad, one of them clean, the other careless,
00:51 one of them healthy, the other sick.
00:54 Suppose we call them the clean family and the careless family.
01:03 Now, how does it happen that the careless family is sick
01:06 while the clean family is not?
01:08 Well, let's see how the folks in the clean family live.
01:12 They live in a clean little house that looks like this.
01:16 Let's go inside.
01:16 It's mealtime.
01:21 Here's the mother cooking for the family.
01:24 Notice that she cooks on a simple stove of brick.
01:28 And for good reason.
01:29 She wants the food to be kept clean.
01:32 And see how clean her dishes are kept,
01:35 and how clean the food is, protected from flies.
01:37 And look outside here.
01:42 This is how the clean family keeps the pigs and chickens
01:45 confined in a simple corral of stakes and thongs.
01:49 This keeps the yard clean and also
01:51 keeps the pigs and chickens from wandering into the house.
01:54 And this means a clean house.
01:59 Here's the father working in the cornfield with his son.
02:01 This is indeed a happy family, because it's a clean family.
02:14 But let's compare this to the way the careless family lives.
02:18 Here is their house.
02:21 And here are some of their chickens.
02:23 And here's their pig left loose in the yard.
02:26 But let's go inside and meet the family.
02:28 Hey, you, get out of there.
02:31 You don't have any business in the house.
02:34 Here is the mother cooking the family meal.
02:37 She cooks on the floor, as has always been her custom.
02:41 But this has disadvantages.
02:43 Uh-oh, here's a chicken loose.
02:45 And there's that nosy pig again.
02:47 Cooking on the floor exposes the food to dirt and dust,
02:53 and to the sicknesses that might be in dirt.
02:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:59 The father is not able to work because he's sick.
03:05 Little Johnny has stomach cramps,
03:06 and he sits in the corner most of the time.
03:10 Why should there be so much sickness in this home?
03:14 Well, let's go back to the day when Johnny first
03:17 became ill with the cramps.
03:18 Poor Johnny, he was in great distress.
03:25 And to make matters worse, there was no latrine,
03:29 but there was a cornfield.
03:30 That's where everyone went.
03:32 It was the custom.
03:33 But this was a very bad custom.
03:39 Though Johnny didn't know it, he was soon to bring
03:41 more sickness into his family.
03:44 Why?
03:46 Well, when a person has a sickness of the stomach,
03:49 that which leaves his body also contains the sickness.
03:53 And the sickness will live in the dirt
03:54 where he's left it for many days.
03:56 One morning a few days later, the father
04:01 went into the field to hoe his corn.
04:04 Yes, the same field where Johnny had often
04:06 come with his stomach cramps.
04:08 The sickness was still living in the dirt where Johnny left it.
04:14 Johnny's father found it hard work
04:16 hoeing the long rows in the hot sun,
04:18 and so he sat down for a few minutes to rest.
04:22 Idly, he sifted the cool dirt through his fingers
04:25 the way a true farmer will.
04:27 That dirt had in it an evil sickness, the sickness left
04:31 there in the field by Johnny.
04:34 And even though he dusted the soil off his hands,
04:36 the invisible sickness stayed.
04:38 And so he carried it with him when he went home to dinner.
04:44 And since he never washed his hands before eating,
04:47 the sickness from the field was still on them.
04:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:53 It got on the food he was eating,
04:58 and the sickness went with the food into his stomach.
05:00 Soon, he too became sick, worse even than Johnny.
05:07 All this misery simply because they didn't know.
05:14 How could Johnny know he should use a latrine?
05:16 His family had no latrine.
05:18 It was not their custom.
05:20 What a careless family.
05:22 But let's see what the clean family
05:24 did about this same problem.
05:26 The father put up a simple latrine.
05:30 Here's how he built it.
05:31 First, he dug a deep hole.
05:33 Near at hand were some rough-hewn boards,
05:38 some stakes cut from trees, and some fat straw.
05:43 Let's see how he used these simple materials.
05:48 When the hole was deep enough, he
05:49 laid the boards across it, leaving
05:51 an opening in the center.
05:53 Then he fashioned a covering for this opening
05:56 to keep the flies out.
05:57 Flies too can carry sickness if they walk in filth
06:00 and then enter our homes.
06:03 Then he placed the stakes at the four corners of the latrine.
06:06 Now he was ready for the fat, so he--
06:09 wait a minute.
06:10 We seem to have a customer already.
06:12 It's little Tommy.
06:14 Excuse us, young man.
06:15 Suppose we give you some privacy.
06:18 [WHISTLING]
06:20 There, that's more like it.
06:22 That's what the thatch was for in the first place.
06:26 Little Tommy has been taught to use this latrine instead
06:29 of going into the field.
06:30 The inside of the latrine is always kept neat and clean.
06:36 And in this way, the sickness of the field
06:38 is kept from spreading.
06:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:43 The careless household is indeed a place of unhappiness.
06:51 Because he never washes himself, Johnny is uncomfortable.
06:55 He's always scratching.
06:56 Tommy, on the other hand, gets a bath often.
07:02 In fact, everyone in this careful family bathes often.
07:06 To keep themselves clean, they wear clean clothes, clothes
07:10 washed with plenty of good soap, clothes
07:13 dried in the sunshine in clean places, never in the dirt.
07:17 The mother washes her hands to make them clean
07:20 before she handles the food.
07:23 She knows that sickness on food brings sickness
07:25 to those who eat that food.
07:28 The father and son also know about the sickness
07:30 that may be in dirt.
07:32 So they wash their hands before eating.
07:34 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:38 The clean family keep their dishes clean.
07:41 They keep their food clean.
07:43 They sweep their house to keep it clean.
07:46 They keep their yard clean.
07:47 And they bury all refuse that might attract flies or rats
07:50 that bring sickness.
07:53 They have a good latrine.
07:54 And they keep it clean.
07:56 And they keep their bodies clean.
07:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:02 These are the reasons why they're strong and healthy.
08:05 This is why they're happy.
08:08 Always remember, cleanliness brings health and happiness.
08:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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08:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]