DIRTINESS FOR HEALTH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 359, 10 May 1911, Page 2

DIRTINESS FOR HEALTH.

— Sir Almroth Wright, a medical practitioner of some distinction in London, has astonished the public by expressing the opinion that most people wash far too often and too thoroughly. The result of the frequent "ablutions, he states, is the destruction of the natural protective cuat of the skin and exposure of the inner tissues to attack by noxious germs. "When one has a horny hand," said Sir Almroth in the course of a lecture, "no microbe can ever get near the skin. If one has a skin like that of a tortoise, microbes will never get through. To have a Trukish bath is to take away one's horny protection, and I object to it. A great deal of washing increases the microbes of the skin, so I do not think cleanliness is to be recommended as a hygienic method. The policy of hygiene has been to kill tha microbes outside the body. I suggest that we should kill off the microbes in the interior of the body, and I would like that to be the programme of hygiene. That could be done if we took the trouble to study. The body has magnificent machinery for turning out the intruders. Microbes fall into the cracks of our skin every day, but they are usually short-lived, provisijn being made for killing them off. What is required is to study how the protection of our bodies against microbes can be increased, so that when the microbes get into the body the protective machinery might be added." Other medical men have said in reply that the intrusion of an occasional microbe through softened tissue is less likely to produce disease than is the accumulation of dirt and germs on the unwashed skin. It is a matter of common knowledge that very many cases of skin disease are direct result of unclean personal habits. Sir Almroth is (juite willing to admit that "periodica! washing" is desirable, but he has conveyed an impression that he would ike to ban the daily "tub." He is not likely to win adherents from among the people who regard seven baths a week as more essential to their personal well-being than three meais a day.