Euthenics

Euthenics (/juːˈθɛnɪks/) is the study of improvement of human functioning and well-being by improvement of living conditions."Improvement" is conducted by altering external factors such as education and the controllable environments, including environmentalism, education regarding employment, home economics, sanitation, and housing, as well as the prevention and removal of contagious disease and parasites.

Quotes

Richards, Ellen H. Swallow (1912) [1910]. Euthenics: The Science of Controllable Environment: A Plea for Better Conditions As a First Step Toward Higher Human Efficiency (2nd ed.). Boston: Whitcomb & Barrows. ISBN 0405098278.

• Not through chance, but through increase of scientific knowledge; not through compulsion, but through democratic idealism consciously working through common interests, will be brought about the creation of right conditions, the control of the environment.

• Right living conditions comprise pure food and a safe water supply, a clean and disease free atmosphere in which to live and work, proper shelter and adjustment of work, rest, and amusements.

• Probably not more than twenty-five percent in any community are capable of doing a full days work such as they would be capable of doing if they were in perfect health.

• Men ignore nature's laws in their personal lives. They crave a larger measure of goodness and happiness, and yet in their choice of dwelling places, in their building of houses to live in, in their selection of food and drink, in their clothing of their bodies, in their choice of occupations and amusements, in their methods and habits of work, they disregard natural laws and impose upon themselves conditions that make their ideals of goodness and happiness impossible of attainment.
  • George E. Dawson, The control of life through Environment), as quoted here.

• It is within the power of every living man to rid himself of every parasitic disease.
  • Louis Pasteur, as quoted here.