HOW GERMS TRAVEL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10638, 14 April 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW GERMS TRAVEL.

v_ 0 . 0 SUNSHINE AND FRESH AIR THEIR DEADLY ENEMIES. The list of infectious diseases is increasing almost daily, said Dr. Robertson, the Birmingham medical officer of health, in a lecture at the Birmingham University. Nobody, he added, had yet been able to obtain the small-pox or scarlet fever germ, and others A\ r ere so minute that if magnified, to the size of an inch, a human being, magnified proportionately, Avould seem 25 to 30 miles high. Arctic travellers reported themselves free from colds and other maladies until their friends sent some from home in their supplies. He had never knoA^n scarleft fever carried by germs being . blown out of one house into another. The intervening air and sunlight sufficed to kill germs, but a speaker, by the mere act of speaking could project the germs 30 or 40 feet. Coughing and sneezing were powerful germ distributors. In regard to consumption, persons who lived under healthy conditions and Avere well nourished Avere practically unsusceptible. It Avas an ugly thought that practically everybody had frequently been infected Avith tuberculosis or other germs, which, Avere destroyed Avithout being able to develop in their bodies.