What is environmental sanitation?
The environment includes geographical environment, climatic environment, social environment and the small environment in which everyone lives. In the environment, there are many factors that act on the human body all the time. These factors can be summarized as physical, chemical and biological, which are not only complex but also constantly changing. With the help of the internal control mechanism, the human body maintains a relative balance with various environmental factors, showing the adaptability of the body to the environment, but the adaptability of human beings is limited. When the harmful environment acts on the human body for a long time, or exceeds a certain limit, it will endanger health, cause diseases and even lead to death.
Environmental factors have received much attention since ancient times. For example, there is a clear record in Huangdi Neijing: "The gas of a country has different biochemical longevity. Why?" Qi Bo said: The principle of competition is determined by the terrain, the lofty is ruled by Yin Qi, and the polluted is ruled by Yang Qi. Yang is congenital, and Yin is acquired. This geography is common, and the biochemical way is also ... the highest anger and the lowest anger. The land is small and different, and the land is small and different. "Obviously, if you live in fresh air. People in alpine areas with cold climate live longer, while people in low-lying areas with dirty air and hot climate live shorter. It can be seen that the soil, water, climate and environment in residential areas are very important to human health and longevity. According to modern research, the mountainous area between 1500 ~ 2000 meters above sea level is really a long-lived geographical environment with dense negative ions. According to the statistics of the third population census in China, there are more than 3,700 people over the age of 100. Most of these longevity people live in forest-covered mountain villages and ethnic minority areas.
As we all know, human death is mainly caused by diseases, but at present, the potential of prolonging human life just by treating diseases is very limited. Because in the past hundred years, the causes of human death have undergone fundamental changes. It has changed from various infectious diseases as the main cause to senile diseases as the main cause. In other words, in modern times, death is mostly caused by the aging of cells and tissues as a direct factor. Take common malignant tumors as an example. For cerebrovascular diseases and heart diseases, although the direct causes are different, they are closely related to the aging and damage of cells and tissues. Although there are many reasons for these diseases, the bad environmental impact is an important reason that cannot be ignored. As early as 100 years ago, British doctors found that in Britain, residents living in clay, brick soil and valley alluvial soil distribution areas had high cancer mortality, while residents living in ancient hard rock formations and well-drained areas had low cancer incidence. American scholars also found that the high incidence of cancer in the United States is concentrated in the northeast, around the Great Lakes and along the western coast.
In China, the distribution of cancer is very wide, with obvious regional differences. Even in a small area, various cancers have their own unique geographical distribution. For example, the high incidence of liver cancer is concentrated in Fujian and Guangdong; The high incidence area of esophageal cancer is mainly in the north, and the high incidence area of esophageal cancer at the junction of Henan, Hebei and Shanxi provinces is concentric, and the incidence rate gradually decreases from the central area to the surrounding areas.
Not only the natural environment is closely related to human health, but also the social environment is closely related to human physical condition. For example, Huangdi Neijing pointed out: "Anyone who wants to diagnose a disease must ask where to eat and drink. If you are happy, you will suffer. If you are happy, you will suffer, you will be injured, exhausted and ruined." Obviously, we should pay attention to the influence of social and psychological factors in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. According to legend, in the era of Emperor Yao, people dug wells to drink water. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, residents also formulated a clean drinking water convention, and those who did not abide by it were dealt with according to law. Archaeological excavations on the remains of ancient urban sites in China have confirmed that sewers built with clay pipes have been used in urban underground during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, which not only pays attention to drinking water hygiene, but also pays attention to environmental sanitation. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates also wrote health works about air, water and soil.
During the industrial revolution in Europe in the18th century, many medical topics related to social factors were put forward, which urged doctors to explore the relationship between social factors and human health and diseases. 1766, German John Petro Frank suggested that the government should take measures to protect the health of individuals and the public, and took the lead in putting forward the idea of "medical supervision". 1838, German Jay Eroshu put forward the concept of "social health". He pointed out that human beings are social animals that depend on society to survive. He also divided health into two categories: one is personal hygiene, which is completely subordinate to personal initiative; One is public health or social health, which requires legal or administrative measures.
1848, the Frenchman Jules Green first linked the word "society" with medical problems and put forward a new concept of "social medicine". He divided social medicine into four parts: social physiology-studying the internal relationship between people's physical and mental state and its laws, organizations, systems and customs; Social pathology-the study of social problems of health and disease; Social health-studying measures to improve health and prevent diseases; Social therapy-formulate treatment measures and other means to deal with negative factors that society may encounter.
From 65438 to 0848, under the influence of the French Revolution, Norman, a German, pointed out that "the core of medicine is social science".
Since the beginning of this century, the social factors exposed during the two world wars have had a prominent impact on health, and social medicine has been widely accepted by the medical community in developed countries.
After World War II, with the development of industrial and agricultural production and the rapid development of science and technology, the impact of various social factors on health is more prominent than ever before. The society has put forward many new topics for medicine: "public nuisance diseases" are caused by the destruction of ecological balance caused by environmental pollution; The increase of accidental injuries caused by modern industry, agriculture and transportation; Changes in disease spectrum caused by population aging and social modernization.
In short, because people have biological and social attributes, we must pay attention to the influence of social environmental factors on people's health and diseases.
In addition to the natural environment and social environment, biological factors can not be ignored, including all organisms that coexist with people and directly or indirectly affect people. Human health is also closely related to biological diseases, and pathogens and parasites also affect human development and aging.
Biological pathogens that can cause human diseases include bacteria, viruses, mycoplasma, spirochetes, protozoa, rickettsia, worms and so on. Some diseases are caused by animals or insects, such as rat-borne plague, leptospirosis and rat bite, dog-borne rabies, pig-borne tapeworm disease, mosquito-borne malaria, Japanese encephalitis, tick-borne epidemic typhus, fly-borne dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever.
Diseases caused by biological factors pose a serious threat to human survival, life and age growth. Historically, smallpox, plague, cholera, malaria, influenza and so on almost caused the extinction of a region's population. For example, there have been many tragic pandemics in human history, and the most serious one was in14th century. 25 million people died in Europe, accounting for 1/4 of the total population of Europe at that time. In the past 100 years, there have been six cholera pandemics in the world, and hundreds of thousands to millions of people died each time.
To sum up, it is not difficult to see that the environment is an extremely complex and dialectical natural complex. All living things must adapt to the environment in order to survive. Humans should not only adapt to the environment, but also use, dominate and transform it.