48 BACTERIA IN DAILY LIFE 



amongst them. A German official report on this 

 subject states that the average duration of life of 

 such factory hands only reaches thirty-eight years. 

 Doubtless the lightness of the occupation encour- 

 ages many to seek employment in these factories 

 whose state of health would debar them from ob- 

 taining work under more trying circumstances. 

 Some of the conditions under which cigars and 

 cigarettes are made, such as the workers using 

 their saliva to facilitate the rolling of them and 

 fixing of the leaves, and the testing of the 

 "drawing" properties of a cigar by placing it 

 in the mouth, with the facilities offered for the 

 dissemination of dried tuberculous sputum as dust, 

 contribute to make it highly probable that tobacco 

 as it leaves the factory may contain the germs of 

 consumption. 



Before leaving the subject of tobacco and disease 

 germs it may be of interest to inquire what justifi- 

 cation in fact there is for the practice adopted by 

 anxious mothers, when travelling in times of epi- 

 demics of zymotic disease, of thrusting themselves 

 and their children into the sanctum of the other 

 sex the smoking compartment of a railway 

 carriage. I have frequently seen this done, despite 

 the voluble protests of its legitimate occupants. 

 Tassinari has made some very interesting experi- 

 ments on the effect of tobacco smoke on the vitality 



