DON’T PUT YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR MOUTH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19010, 5 November 1923, Page 11

DON’T PUT YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR MOUTH.

THE DANGERS OF INFECTION. By Professor J. Arthur Thomson. In some wild tribes it is the custom to expose disease-stricken children in the bush so that they may be devoured by wild beasts. This is done when the child sickens of certain diseases which the parents know they cannot cope with, even with all the help the medicine-mun can give. It sounds terribly callous and we hold up our hands in horror. Yet we acquiesce in doings which are in the long run more cruel, as when we tolerate the multiplication of certain “types of humanity’’—that is the authorised 'phrase —who are radically unsound. VtTiy do the natives we referred to expose their children who sicken of certain diseases? It is not that they do not care for them; for their mourning is obviously sincere. It is because they do not understand at all what the disease is, because they are powerless to do anything to help, and because they know from past experience that the disease “spreads.” They also know that death comes quickly in the bush. The Germ Theory.— Now, we are apt to forget how young our own knowledge is in regard to infectious diseases. They have been celebrating Pasteur’s centenary in France, and though he may not have oeen the first to Jink together microbes and disease, he was the first to prove the casual connection up to the hilt and to make the “germ theory’ of disease current coin. This theory, that certain diseases are due to the invasion of the body by certain microbes, was epochmaking in two ways. First, because it cleared the air, for it was a great step to know that a disease was not a mysterious monster stretching its hands out of the darkness and gripping man by the throat, but was due to a poisonous plant working from within instead of from without (hke the poison-ivy), or was duo to a beast of prey worrying from within instead of from without (like a wolf). Secondly, the theory was important because it suggested how the intrusion of the disease-germs might be avoided or counteracted. As is usual in tbe history of science, a theoretical discovery was followed by practical applications; more light meant more control. What we wish to do in this article is to consider some of the everyday ■ways in which certain infectious diseases may be avoided. The Microscopic Minions of Death.— It is understood, of course, that the microbes of disease are of extreme minuteness, that there may be a crowd cf them on the point of a pin, or inside the letter “o” in this print. Most of them, like those causing tuberculosis, plague, cholera, diphtheria, and typhoid, are microscopic plants or bacteria. But some others of great importance, like those causing malaria, sleeping-sickness, and syphilis, are due to microscopic animals with complicated lifehistories. An important general fact is that most of the microbes of disease are at home inside the living body and soon die outside; but tins statement has to be supplemented by tVjO saving claus'es; first, that some may live for a time in media like milk or water, and, second, that some have other hosts or victims besides man. Thus the malaria microbe is carried from man to man by the mosquito, and the bacillus of bubonic plague (or “the black death”) is at home in the rat. and gets its first footing in man when he is bitten by an infected rat-flea. Later on, if the plague attacks man’s lungs (becoming “pneumonic”), it may, spread from man to man by the cough and . in similar ways. What the Microbes Do.— It is easy to ask this reasonable question, but it takes a lot of answering. A few microbes find entrance into the body and in a few hours, it may be, the man is dead. The effect seems somehow out of proportion to the cause. “Behold how great a lire a little spark kindleth.” Within the foodcanal or in the blood, or in the windpipe and lungs, the invaders multiply with extreme rapidity. “A bacillus less than one live thousandth part of an inch in length multiplies under normal conditions, at a rate that would cause the offspring of a single individual to fill the ocean to the depth cf a mile in five days.” Dr Matfie calculates that the cholera bacillus can duplicate every twenty minutes, and might thus in one day have a progeny of five with 27 noughts after it, and weighing over 7000 tons 1 But before this, happens the patient is dead. ~ It is not, however, by sheer multiplication'that’ microbes kill, nor, in most cases, by making holes in tissues, blocking passages or devouring blood-corpuscles. These things may happen, but the main answer to our question, as far as bacteria are concerned, is that disease and death are due to poisoning. Many bacteria secrete albuminoid poisons or toxins which are fatal to various kinds of living cells within the body. In other cases the toxins are only set free by the destruction and solution of bacteria which is continually taking place. All that we can say in a few words is that the living matter of the bodycells is disastrously susceptible to the presence of these strange albuminoids, and it must be borne in mind that even an innocent stuff like white of egg may act as a virulent poison, Hjw the Invaders Enter.— Microbes may enter the skin by the moats or follicles.at the roots of the hairs; and it is plain that the cleaner and fresher the skin is, the less likely are bacteria to settle and flourish. The mouth with its many crevices where microbes may lurk, is a frequent area of infection, and in spite of various guards—e.g., in the nasal passage, the lungs are still more open to attack. They present an enormous moist surface of about 97 square yards, and the covering membrane is very delicate. As regards the food canal there is rarely infection in the smooth-walicd gullet through which the food passes quickly, or in the stomach with its acid secretion; but in the intestine, with its large, delicate, and irregular internal surface, opportunities abound. Here the microbes of cholera, dysentry, and typhoid fever find entrance. It often happens that microbes enter by slight wounds in the skin, along with which must be included the punctures due to the mosquitoes and tsetse flies, which introduce malaria and sleeping-sickness organisms, respectively. Professor Councilman says that the deaths of children from lockjaw following a Fourtn of July celebration have often exceeded the total deaths in a Central American Revolution. Lockjaw is duo to the poisonous influence of the tetanus bacillus which is widely distributed in the soil and on the dirty bands of little Povs. The toy-pistol wound means that a small piece of paper or metal i s driven into the skin along with tetanus bacilli from the dirty surface. In a few days the microbes have multiplied and the terrible disease sets in. How to Avoid Infection.— Sunlight is a powerful antagonist of disease-microbes, and those that float in dry, well-lighted spaces are mostly dead. It follows that we should do what we reasonably can to avoid dark lanes in a city and dark rooms in a house. In many ways light is a life-giver, but it is death to most bacteria, especially when combined with dryness. Perhaps it makes the microbes live so intensely that they die! More light is our first principle of safety. The second is to be a little more fastidiously critical of what we eat and drink. There is no rotting without bacteria, and whenever food and drink has begun to go wrong we should be careful. It means that microbes’ are multiplying, and they may be producing what is poisonous. I n many cases it is not the bacteria that cause the rottenness that are dangerous, it is what they are directly or indirectly producing. And they are very likely to make the food more liable to be contaminated by other more virulent bacteria. Of course one must exercise common sense. There are plenty of bacteria in butter-milk, but it is a very wholesome drink. There are plenty of bacteria in the most palatable cheese, but it is" a, verv wholesome food. Yet there are good reasons for avoiding stagnant water, milk that, has been standing uncovered, meat over which (lies have been crawling, and mussels that have been too long out of the sea. Be Fastidious!- - But the most important principle is to be fastidious in regard to other people and this must be observed in moderation if

one wishes to live a quiet life. What modern hygienic science has shown eonvincingly is that most of the disease germs pass from person to person by direct or indirect contact. There are “carriers” who are walking reservoirs of microbes and are continually infecting other people, sometimes by coughing and sneezing intemperately, sometimes by loud talking and-laugh-ing in which there is rain as well as wind, sometimes by kissing and fondling., sometimes by handling food and drink without proper precautions, sometimes by contaminating an article that some other person will • afterwards use. One of the reasons why children are more liable to certain diseases than grown-up people are must be found in the habit of putting things, including their own fingers, to their mouth. This is-almost courting infection; And jt must be remembered that besides "carriers” of typhoid and the like, who have been very ill and have never got rid of the .microbes, there . are others who have a disease so mildly that it is hardly recognised.—John o’ London’s Weekly 7.