HOW TO PREVENT DISEASE

Hokitika Guardian, 28 August 1929, Page 7

HOW TO PREVENT DISEASE

CAUSES OF INFECTION.

THE DANGER OF KISSING

AUCKLAND, August 22

Kissing, sneezing, and talking loudly were among the direct ways oi transferring infection from one person to another mentioned by Dr. T. J. Hughes medical 'officer of health in the course of a lecture on “How to Prevent Disease,” delivered before the Auckland Institute.

You could not have a more "direct way of transferring germs than by kissing,” he said. “The Continental practice off kissing the cheeks is much to be preferred, although even in that case there is danger.” The safest advice was, he said, “ avoid kissing, especially kissing children.” No less than 90 per cent of infections, said Dr Hughes, were taken into the body through the mouth. That was the reason why all food should be clean and thoroughly cooked, why the hands should be washed before preparing foqd and before sitting down to meals, and why the fingers and objects like pencils should not be put in the mouth. Normally infections were not taken into thd body through the skin unless it was a cut.

Dr Hughes referred to a case in which 13 stokehold hands employed on a steamer contracted typhoid through walking up and down a ladder on the rungs df which one of their number had deposited typhoid genus. The disease could be conveyed by the* practice of two people sleeping in the same bed or bv talking loudly or sneezing in another person’s face. To be safe from such a cause of infection it was necessary to stand at least four feet away from a carrier. Germs of infectious diseases had been ifound on pencils and pens handed out to children in school and collected after a lesson. It was only necessary for a child to suck its fingers afterwards to contract the disease. This school practice was undoubtedly dangerous. The common towel and drinking cup should also be prohibited. ' Germs could be left by a carrier on the pages of books, especially if the fingers were moistened in the mouth in the act of turning the pages over, and would be picked up by the next person using the book.