

HYGIENE OF RESPIRATION il 



individual and his friends and loved ones, but it is best 

 for the race, for it prevents gradual degeneration into a 

 race of weaklings. 



311. Whether the body has been injured through ig- 

 norance or self-sacrifice, through dissipation or selfish am- 

 bition for money or fame, through foolish attempts at 

 beauty or through devotion to learning, or through unselfish 

 love and work for others, the result is the same ; nature 

 knows no difference. However noble the character or wise 

 the mind (in other directions), when a vital organ has sunk 

 in health below the standard necessary for a human being, 

 condemnation comes. 



312. Bacilli are usually found in the sputum only in an 

 advanced stage of consumption. Then recovery is more 

 difficult, but it will often come if the person returns to 

 natural ways, living out of doors and allowing the forces 

 of health to purify the body. 



313. Effects of Bacteria. You learned that they produce 

 decay in unsound tissue. They destroy the albumin in 

 which they grow, producing foul-smelling gases and a 

 number of poisons called ptomaines, if formed after death. 

 Ptomaines cause most of the symptoms produced by eating 

 decayed meat. A special kind of ptomaine sometimes 

 forms in milk and ice cream which has been kept for a long 

 while. This is why ice cream which has been melted, and 

 frozen a second time, is dangerous. 



314. The growth of bacteria in an unsound, living 

 body, produces poisons called toxins, which, circulating 

 among the sound tissues, produce weakness and disease. 

 Disease germs may grow upon the injured cells in an 

 open wound, causing offensive matter to form. In severe 

 cases they 'cause swelling of the surrounding parts, with 

 erysipelas or blood poisoning. Diphtheria, typhoid fever, 

 consumption, cholera, lockjaw and la grippe are all 

 diseases in which germs have been proved to be present. 



