How to Live: Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern ScienceFisher, Irving
Science
How to Live: Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science
Fisher, Irving
Hygiene
The infections of common colds are always to be found in the nasal
passages and become active when the individual is subject to fatigue or
indigestion or both. The liability of catching cold is greater when the
mucous lining is injured. Nasal douches are injurious and impair the
protective ability of the mucous membrane. They should be used only on
prescription. A very gentle, warm spray of weak salt and water may be
used when the nose is filled with soot and dust. The fingers should be
kept from the nose. Handkerchiefs should be frequently changed, or
small squares of gauze used and subsequently burned.
[Sidenote: Tuberculosis Germs]
The germ of tuberculosis is probably conveyed oftenest through the
sputum of consumptives, when this sputum has been allowed to dry, has
become pulverized and is breathed into the system. All sputum should be
burned. It is well to avoid rooms occupied by consumptives who are not
careful with their sputum.
[Sidenote: Mosquito-borne Malaria and Yellow Fever]
Suitable wire netting will guard us from malaria and yellow fever, the
infections brought by mosquitoes and flies. The mosquito often carries
malaria, and in the tropics carries yellow fever and other diseases. As
some one has said: "A yard of screen in the window is better than a yard
of crape on the door." The greatest triumph in connection with the
building of the Panama Canal was not the engineering but the reduction
in the death-rate among the workers, which, on account of these
insect-borne diseases, had previously prevented the successful execution
of the undertaking.
Not only is it desirable to screen from mosquitoes, but to put oil on
any body of water where they breed. Even a small puddle can breed
millions of mosquitoes. No empty tin cans should be allowed to collect
about the kitchen door; they gather rain-water and soon breed
mosquitoes.
[Sidenote: Typhoid-free Water]
We take in many disease germs through food or drink. Every year 300,000
people in the United States enlist under the typhoid banner. To elude
the typhoid-germ we need first of all pure water. But when one is in
doubt as to the purity of water, it is advisable to boil water in order
to destroy possible typhoid germs and other dangerous germs and
impurities. Where hygienic water has been used a very large proportion
of the deaths from typhoid has been eliminated. Where this is not
feasible, it is desirable to use chlorinated lime (ordinary bleaching
powder) in the drinking water (one part to 200,000--shake up and leave
several minutes). If water of doubtful quality has to be drunk, it
should be at the middle or end of a meal when the healthy stomach
contains plenty of gastric juice, which to a limited extent has the
power to kill germs.
It is safer to keep out of swimming tanks that are not filtered or
refilled constantly, or chemically purified as by chlorinated lime.
[Sidenote: Typhoid-free Milk]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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