KEEPING AWAY SICKNESS
=Too Much Sickness.=--Many diseases are caused by our own carelessness
and our bad habits of living. We have about one doctor for every one
hundred families. There are enough people sick every day to make a
city as large as New York or to equal the number of people living in
the thirteen states of Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico,
Utah, Delaware, Montana, Vermont, New Hampshire, North Dakota and
South Dakota, and Oklahoma.
A careful study of disease and its cause shows that at least one half
of all the sickness in our land can be avoided by right living.
=The Cause of Sickness.=--Some people are so foolish as to make
themselves sick. They weaken the body by using much beer or wine, by
breathing bad air, by lack of exercise, or by fast eating. When the
body becomes weak, it is likely to get sick at any time.
[Illustration: FIG. 93.--The germs of diseases. Much enlarged.]
It is not always our own fault when we are sick. It may be caused by
the carelessness of others who have let germs escape from their bodies
so that they are able to reach us. One half of the sickness in our
land is catching sickness. That is, it is sickness which passes from
one person to another and is caused by tiny germs or microbes. A
catching sickness is called a _contagious disease_. Some of the common
catching diseases are sore throat, colds, diphtheria, pneumonia,
typhoid fever, measles, grippe, and whooping cough.
=How we get a Catching Sickness.=--We get a catching sickness by
taking into our bodies the germs from some other person. The germs of
the sick do not pass off in the breath, but in the spit or anything
else which comes from their bodies. This is why the spit and all slops
from the sick room should be burned, buried, or destroyed in some way.
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--How the germs of disease start on their
mission of death. This sewer carries slops from the houses of the sick
and well and empties into a stream used below for drinking water.]
We should think it very wicked if a showman should turn his lions and
tigers loose in a crowd of women and children. Somebody would surely
be killed and others hurt. It is just as wrong to turn loose the
germs of the sick by throwing the spit and the slops where they will
get into a stream or where the flies may find them and by soiling
their feet leave death in their trail wherever they crawl.
=How the Germs of Sickness catch Us.=--The germs of sickness have no
feet to walk and no wings to fly, yet they easily travel from the sick
to the well. They are not killed by being frozen, or drowned by
floating in water, or destroyed by drying. For this reason they can
travel with the ice, water, milk, and dust.
In Buffalo, New York, fifty-seven children caught the scarlet fever in
one week by using milk cared for by a boy who was getting well from
the scarlet fever.
The germs of sickness are so small that a million can hang to the
hands or clothing and not be seen. For this reason they are often left
clinging to the fingers, desks, books, and pencils, and travel in
large numbers on the feet of flies. The surest way the germs have of
getting from one person to another is by the common drinking cup.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.--Photograph of clear beef broth jelly in which
a fly walked five minutes scattering germs. Two days later each germ
brushed off the fly's feet grew into a city of germs appearing as a
white spot.]
=The Common Drinking Cup is an Exchange Station for Germs.=--The most
careful examinations have shown that there are thousands of children
as well as grown persons who have very light attacks of scarlet fever,
tuberculosis, or other diseases and go to school or about their work
scattering the germs of sickness in their spit. A child seldom drinks
from a cup without leaving on it thousands of germs. Some of these may
be germs which will cause sickness. On one drinking cup used in a
school, the germs were found to be as thick as the leaves on a maple
tree in June.
In an Ohio school one warm day, a boy with beginning measles drank
from the cup which was afterward used on the same day by the teacher
and all the other pupils. In less than two weeks every pupil and the
teacher were suffering from measles. _Put nothing into your mouth
which has been in another's mouth._
[Illustration: FIG. 96.--A schoolhouse in Morgan county, Ohio, where
sixteen pupils and the teacher caught the measles in one day by drinking
from a cup which had been used by a boy sick with the measles.]
=The Golden Rule.=--If you have a catching sickness, such as measles,
chicken pox, or whooping cough, stay away from others. Since the germs
of some diseases, like scarlet fever and diphtheria, remain in the
spit sometimes several months after you feel well, don't scatter your
spit. Hold a handkerchief before your face when you sneeze or cough.
_Wash your hands before handling food._
=Some Animals carry Sickness.=--Mosquitoes carry malaria and yellow
fever and some other diseases. Flies carry typhoid fever, grippe,
diphtheria, and tuberculosis. Bedbugs and fleas carry the plague and
leprosy. Rats carry the plague. Cats sometimes carry diphtheria. Many
cows have tuberculosis and the germs of this disease are then
sometimes found in their milk. Some children have caught tuberculosis
from drinking such milk.
[Illustration: FIG. 97.--A pane of glass held about two feet before the
face of a boy who sneezed. The spots are the droplets of spit thrown
out. Each spot showed under the microscope from 50 to 1000 germs.]
=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.
=The Hookworm Disease.=--This is a sickness affecting thousands of
persons in the South. It is caused by tiny worms half as large as a pin
hanging fast to the lining of the bowels. The worm is sometimes called
the lazy germ because it destroys the red blood cells and makes the body
feel weak and lazy. Children with these worms grow slowly, have a dry
skin, and a swollen abdomen with a tender spot below the stomach.
The disease is easily cured by a physician, but it is better to
prevent it by killing the germs in the waste from the bowels. For
directions, address the Department of Health at the capital of your
state. If the germs reach the ground they crawl around and may get
into the well, and enter the body again with the drinking water.
Generally, however, the worms enter through the skin of those going
barefooted, and are carried by the blood to the lungs. From here they
go up the windpipe to the throat, and then down the gullet to the
bowels. It is their entrance through the skin that causes ground itch
or dew itch. Wearing shoes will help prevent the disease.
=A Strong Body Wins.=--Nobody wants to be weak and sickly. Most all of
us could keep well if we would try in the right way to keep the body
strong.
To keep the body in health it must have plenty of sleep, enough good
food well chewed, plenty of clean water, exercise every day, and an
abundance of fresh air. The body is the temple of the soul. Don't hurt
it with bad habits.
PRACTICAL QUESTIONS
1. How many people are sick to-day in our country?
2. How can much sickness be avoided?
3. What causes sickness?
4. What is a contagious disease?
5. Name some contagious diseases.
6. How do we get a catching sickness?
7. Why should we be careful with the slops from the sick
room?
8. Tell how children in Buffalo caught scarlet fever.
9. What is the danger in using a cup from which others
have drunk?
10. How can you prevent others from getting your sickness?
11. Name some animals which carry sickness.
12. How can we keep away smallpox?
13. Give six rules to keep away colds.
14. How may the body be kept strong?