CHAPTER VIII 



MICROBES AND KEEPING CLEAN 



Last winter, in the town where I was staying, there 

 were large red cards fastened to the houses on almost 

 every street. More than that, on each card there were 

 seven letters so long and so black that people who 

 walked on the opposite side of the street had no trouble 

 in reading the word "measles." Everybody also knew 

 what the sign meant, for it was as if the doctor had 

 called aloud : " Measles are in this house. If you come in 

 here, you will be in danger. You 'd better stay away." 



After the sign had been put up, I noticed that the 

 neighbors obeyed the warning, for very few people be- 

 sides the doctor himself went in and out of the house. 



The fact is that the air in places where people have 

 had certain diseases contains so many microbes of that 

 disease that we are never willing to breathe it if we can 

 help it. We are also most careful not to touch the 

 people themselves, for we know only too well that 

 microbes go as easily from a sick child to a well child 

 as from a rotten apple to a sound one. It is a more 

 serious matter, too, for the child ; for though we can 

 cut off a piece of apple that is getting rotten to save 



34 



