DANGERS OF WASHING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1011, 29 June 1911, Page 4

DANGERS OF WASHING.

The efficacy of all, or nearly all, the rules of hygiene was disputed by Sir Altnrolh Wright in a lecture on “Bacteriology and Hygiene ’’ at the theatre of the Civil Service Commission, Burlington Gardens, W., the other afternoon,

“ The present methods ot dealing with epidemics are quite futile,” he said. “There is a widespread belief that if people have not got disease they can keep it away by following rules of hygiene, and if they have disease they can make it better by following those rules.

“ The rules are that they must eat a lot, have a certain amount of hard exercise, wash, and have plenty of fresh air. Those things constitute individual hygiene, and I am persuaded that they are quite wrong.

“ There is no evidence that the man who does not do physical exercises is more liable to diseases than the man who does. As to washing, there is a belief that by doing so people wash off the microbes. We do take off a certain amount of microbes, but we also destroy the protective skin which is all round our bodies like the tiles of a house.

“ When one has a horny baud no microbe can ever get near the skin. If one has a skin like a tortoise microbes will never get

krough, To nave a Turkish 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 hygiene method.”