DANGER FROM GERMS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 5 April 1926, Page 2

DANGER FROM GERMS.

POSSIBHATIES OF INFECTION. RISKS IN CONVERSATION. “Whaib Sir Kenneth Goadley says is quite correct; there is a danger,” said Or. A. B. Pearson, bacteriologist at the Christchurch Hospital, when speaking of the cabled remarks of Sir Kenneth to the effect that people who talk light into oneis face are dangerous, because they may be suffering from some disease and in this .way transmit it to the listener. Or. Pearson added that experiments had been carried out to find the distance that bacteria was expelled in the act of talking, and it had been found teat the distance, roughly speaking, was an arm’s length. The, germs of diphtheria or consumption might be inhaled in the course' of conversation, but the risk was no greater than was run through inhaling the dust from, the street or from a room where the sunlight has not the same effect as in the open. “The throat and mouth of every individual contain germs, many of which are harmless, but some are 'indistinguishable, such as we might cultivate from a ca,se of pneumonia. Jr we are particularly careful we might avoid diphtheria and consumption, _ said, Hr. Pearson, in referring to his own department which, handles laigo numbers of germs daily “hut we run many more risks than the average person. Here where we are constantly in touch ivith germs we do not suffer from cold as much as .the average person, and in the 14 years that 1 have been working here there have been only three oases of notifiable diseases amongst the members of the staff. Hr. Pearson expressed the opinion that germs are so universal that the message rather stressed she °- n . e point that if the germ are. communicated and the resistance of the, receiver is good, they must be destroyed, otherwise everyone would he a victim, to consumption or other bacteriological diseases. As one grew older the resistance to a great many germs, was increased.