Sunlight and fresh air are deadly enemies to all germs except those of venereal origin. If a smallpox patient has been confined to a room and after being taken away the room is fumigated and then closed, the chances are that the smallpox germs――some of them――will remain and increase. Hence, to again occupy this room would be dangerous. But if, instead of fumigating the room, if all the windows were open; if every corner and floor could receive the rays of the sun for many days; the last germ in the room would have to give up the ghost.
Don’t think that fumigating and washing clothes or other articles which have come in contact with a diseased person make for absolute safety. But do remember that SUNLIGHT and fresh air are deadly enemies to most disease germs.
There are certain diseases which are carried around by persons in whom you would never suspect danger. Typhoid germs, for example, may be carried around in the intestines of a person who is in apparent health. Now everywhere this person lives, or uses the toilet, the germs are deposited, and if they happen to get into the drinking water――wells or streams――or are carried by the flies’ legs to the food or milk, you run great risks of getting typhoid fever.
Those germs of two horrible diseases which are to be found upon public toilet articles, public drinking cups, upon the leaves of common books――in fact everywhere man or woman is to be found, are _not_ killed by sunlight or fresh air. This subject should be thoroughly understood by every young woman, but it is of too great importance to be dealt with here in a few paragraphs.
The breath of a consumptive patient will not carry directly the germs of consumption to another person. Oh, I know that is what many of you have been taught, but we are dealing with the facts as they are known up to this very year of 1911. It has long been the general idea that disease germs were carried from one person or thing to another person or thing. Now this is not strictly true. All germs increase and thrive in moist and dark conditions. The throat of a consumptive patient is one of these conditions. The germs are sent out into the air of the room in surrounding moisture. They land somewhere; on the tablecloth, in the carpet, or hide in a dark corner. In these places they dry and become dust――germ-laden dust. Now stir up this dust and then you have the germs free to rush into the healthy lungs around them, and then a person runs great risk of contracting consumption.