LowPolygon
Senior Member
When children were taken to the Islands for their health:
Very interesting—thank you! There is something strangely moving about the idea of crowds gathering to watch the departure and return of the children in June and September. The image of people gathering to watch (and encourage) a parade of sick children in hospital beds seems to belong to another kind of public life--and sense of community--that has long since departed.
The idea of the value of “fresh air” was certainly a part of a larger story—that of an increased awareness of the health benefits of sunlight, physical exercise, waste disposal, clean running water, and even body cleanliness itself; an awareness that developed as the link between germ theory and the spread of disease began to be understood, especially with regards to the poor (the 'Great Unwashed'). The discovery of viruses in 1892 added immeasurably to this awareness.
In Toronto, there were justifiable anxieties in the first decade of the 20th century focusing on the role of public drinking water in the spread of disease, and a push to replace the ‘public drinking cup’ with a fountain that would arc a stream of water directly into one’s mouth.
One a related note, it seems there was an ‘open air experimental school' that opened in June 1912 in Victoria Park, an initiative that came directly out of the hygiene reform movement, and had similar goals to the Lakeside Home.
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