Hospital Housekeeping by Charlotte A. Aikens

[Sidenote: Hospital Hygiene]

Some sage has remarked that men and women are doomed, from birth to the grave, to combat three things-disease, dirt and the devil. With a great many of the human race, the effort put forth to oppose either one of the D's is so weak that it could scarcely be called a combat. The D's are on hand, when the first breath is drawn, and the unfortunate individual weakly yields to force of circumstances. If he does not succumb to their influence early in life, he drags through an existence somehow and calls it living. But in a hospital, if the health of the workers is to be preserved, if the hopes of those who come as seekers of health are not to be defeated, if life for any of its inmates is to be considered safe, then nothing less than an unceasing war, a hand-to-hand combat with the three D's must be maintained.