SCHOOL HYGIENE AND SANITATION 321 



until the city of New York now affords the most brilliant example in the world of 

 extension to the school system of all the resources of a great museum." 



Here then was our example; and at the instance of some of the high school 

 teachers most active in civic biology we have attempted to apply the same plan to 

 public health extension work. 



Our first attempt was in the form of an album of large photographs dealing with 

 the spread and prevention of communicable disease. These were mounted on 

 cardboard panels twenty inches wide by thirty inches long, from one to four photo- 

 graphs being borne on each panel. The first panel shows four of the more important 

 pathogenic germs with the text : 



Many sicknesses, and particularly those which are catching or contagious, are 

 caused by little living germs which grow in the body as a mold grows in jelly and 

 make poisons that cause sickness and sometimes death. These germs are harm- 

 less-looking things like microscopic sausages, so small that millions might lodge 

 on a pin point; yet they are the cause of tuberculosis and diphtheria, typhoid 

 fever and cholera and many other diseases. 



The second panel illustrates the sources of the disease germs, the sick person and 

 the carrier [a patient in bed and a rather rough-looking individual carrying a milk 

 bottle by the top in each hand]. The next panels show how disease is spread — by 

 water [with a map of the famous Lowell epidemic]; by milk [a dirty cow barn]; by 

 shellfish, by flies, by bathing in polluted water, and by contact. For the latter 

 subject we posed and photographed children who came to visit the children's room at 

 the Museum. In one, two little girls are doing sums with a common pencil. The 

 legend points out that 



These little girls are doing sums with one pencil, which each in turn without 

 thinking puts in her mouth. Whatever germs are in the mouths will be well 

 mixed and any disease which either child has will be likely to spread to the other. 



In another panel one boy coughs in his hand and then with the same hand gives 

 an apple to another boy who in the third picture eats it. Another panel shows two 

 children waiting for a drink from a common drinking cup used by a larger companion. 

 Next there follow a series of panels showing how such communicable diseases are 

 prevented. One illustrates how milk may be pasteurized in the home. Another 

 shows how to make a drinking cup by folding a square of paper. A table set for 

 breakfast and a picture of a child washing her hands over a basin furnish texts for a 

 discussion of the importance of using individual utensils and of personal cleanliness. 

 Finally the series closes with pictures of an open sleeping-room window and of an 

 outdoor gymnasium with the following legends: 



Not all persons who get disease germs come down with disease. If the body is 

 strong and well it can often defend itself against its tiny enemies. One way to 

 keep well is to have plenty of air in all sleeping rooms. Windows should be open 

 at the bottom to let cool fresh air in and at the top to let the hot bad air out. In 

 winter a screen of cheesecloth may be made for the bottom opening to prevent un- 

 comfortable drafts. 



In the daytime the best way to keep well and able to resist disease is to stay out 

 of doors in the fresh air and sunlight and strengthen the body by wholesome 

 games. 



A second album, deals more specifically with the bacteria and their relation to 

 the life of man. The first panel in this series again shows certain typical bacterial 

 forms. The next four illustrate the relation of bacteria to disease by means of maps 

 and diagrams of water-borne epidemics, typhoid fever and cholera, and of milk-borne 

 epidemics, diphtheria and tonsilitis. The sixth deals with the relation of bacteria 

 to decomposition and the practical method of controlling putrefactive processes, 

 illustrated by a view taken in a canning factory. The seventh photograph, of flax- 



