180 THE NEXT GENERATION 



3. Never use a public bathtub until it has been washed 

 out thoroughly. Do not let the skin of your body touch the 

 seat in a public toilet ; cover it first with cloth or paper. 



4. Never let the moist membrane of any diseased person 

 touch you. There may be death in the touch. 



5 . Never sleep between sheets or on pillow slips that have 

 not been washed after being used by others. 



6. When sleeping away from home, in steamboat, car, or 

 hotel, never let the blankets touch the body. These blankets 

 are not washed after each use, as are the sheets. Always 

 keep the fresh sheets against the face. 



Already society tries to protect itself against smallpox and 

 leprosy, against whooping cough, measles, scarlet fever, tuber- 

 culosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and other communicable ' 

 diseases. And the modern movement aims to save family 

 life from the two diseases mentioned in the last chapter and 

 in this one. Students of the present situation tell us that the 

 prevention of these two diseases is, in fact, the most important 

 hygienic duty which faces the present generation, and that 

 the safety of the nation rests on the ability of the young to 

 understand the danger and to save themselves and their 

 descendants through the power of right living and through 

 their knowledge of facts. 



The rules just given have to do with the risk of passing 

 disease from person to person through the power of disease 

 microbes. In addition, there is another risk which intelligence 

 and will power must control — a risk which faces humanity 

 through the power of inheritance and through the curse of 

 feeble-mindedness. 



In reading the next chapter, recall Dr. Bezzola's statistics 

 about alcohol, germ cells, and feeble-mindedness as given in 

 Chapter XVII. 



