HEALTH AND DISEASE 341 



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digest typhoid-fever germs as well as its natural food. 

 To avoid disease, then, we have but to keep the whole 

 system at a high level of health and vigor. But few are 

 so fortunate as to possess and maintain perfect health, and 

 it is necessary to guard against the entrance of disease 

 germs into the body. 



Careful attention to cleanliness of person and surround- 

 ings is of prime importance. The free use of soap and 

 water, and the daily cleansing of mouth and teeth, are 

 safeguards. Many thousands of bacteria have been 

 counted in the dirt lodged under a single finger nail, 

 and they swarm in soiled clothing. Some of them may 

 be germs of disease. 



All excretions from diseased persons should be treated 

 as dangerous to health, and at once disinfected by fire or 

 by other methods under competent direction. In cases 

 of pulmonary consumption or other .diseases of lungs or 

 throat, all discharges from the respiratory passages should 

 be received upon pieces of soft paper or cloth and immedi- 

 ately burned. The unseemly practice of spitting in pub- 

 lic or in private places should be abolished. It has 

 undoubtedly been in past ages an active cause of the 

 spread of diseases of throat and lungs. The dried sputum 

 is carried hither and thither by the air, to be breathed in 

 by unconscious victims. 



492. In respect to cleanliness of dwellings and their 

 surroundings we are becoming, year by year, more intelli- 

 gent. We know that oxygen and direct sunlight destroy 

 many harmful germs, and we are learning to banish from 

 our homes dark and heavy draperies which exclude sun 

 and air and harbor dust, as well as carpets nailed to the 

 floor and hence not easily and often cleaned. We burn 

 the sweepings from our rooms instead of scattering them 



