=Keeping away Smallpox.=--Smallpox was once the most terrible of all diseases. It is so catching that two or three were often sick with it at one time in the same family. Sometimes nearly one half the people of a whole town would have the disease in one year. Over a hundred years ago nearly every grown up person had little pits scattered over his face as a result of having had smallpox. You can always keep away smallpox by being vaccinated. The doctor can vaccinate you by putting on the freshly scraped skin of your arm some weak smallpox germs from a clean healthy calf which has been vaccinated. Your arm will in a few days get sore and you will not feel well for about one week, but you will be made safe from smallpox for several years. Fifty nurses were vaccinated in Philadelphia and cared for many sick with the smallpox, staying with them day after day, but not one of the nurses took the disease. _Every one should be vaccinated when a year old and again at the age of ten or twelve years._ =Colds.=--Some colds are catching, but we generally take cold because we have weak bodies or have been careless. If you want to be free from colds, remember these six rules:-- Don't sit still in wet clothes or with wet feet. Don't sit in a cold draft or in a cold room. Don't sit on the damp ground or on the ice when you are resting from skating. Don't cool off quickly after exercising. Sleep in a room with the windows _wide_ open. Take a cold bath every morning and draw fresh air to the bottom of the lungs many times every day. =Tuberculosis or Consumption.=--This disease is so common and deadly that twenty persons die from it in our country every hour. It is caused by tiny germs (Fig. 63) which lodge in the lungs, glands, bones, or other parts of the body, where they give off poison and hurt the tissues. We take these germs into the body with dust or food, and also by putting to the lips a drinking cup or other things used by a consumptive. Generally the germs will not grow in a strong body, even when they have lodged there. =Preventing Consumption.=--Living in poorly lighted houses without much fresh air, working in dusty rooms, using much strong drink and tobacco, eating poor food, losing sleep, neglecting a cough, and taking little or no outdoor exercise weaken the body so that the consumption germs can grow in it. Deep breathing, sitting and walking erect, living in rooms with sunshine, sleeping with the windows open eight or nine hours every night, and eating good food will prevent one from taking consumption and will often cure the disease. Persons with this sickness give out the germs in their spit, which should be caught in a cup and burned.