HYGIENE IN EXCELSIS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9420, 16 April 1909, Page 6

HYGIENE IN EXCELSIS.

“Shall we clean cowb’ teeth?” No, this is not a humorous question addressed to a candidate for Parliamentary honours, bnt a question advanced seriously in America and France. A Californian doctor is convinced "that bovine teeth harbour many germs hitherto unsuspected, and that these frequently contaminate children’s milk, producing all kinds of complaints which his fellow-practi-tioners have talked wisely about but do uot iu the least understand. He recommends that the teeth of all dairy oows should be cleaned twice daily, and says tbat this law should be compulsory.” A French speohdist also insists on the necessity'of toothbrushes for cows, whose months are “veritable hot-beds of microbes.** The British Medical Journal la moved to unkind mirth by this and suggests tbat as a further precaution every cow should be suppliedwith an antiseptic gargle. But the French specialist’s insistence on tootfi-Thrash-ing for cows is only one feature of an extraordinary hygienic movement prevalent in France jnst now. From the prohibition of tea, coffee and cocoa, reformers have passed to barring milk, as that aitiole as sold is the next thing to poison. The Paris correspondent of the Daily Mail states that, following the example of Professor Metchnikoff, the eminent biologist, many Frenchmen now refuse to eat fruit unless it has been cooked or washed in sterilised water. Toilet water is only considered safe after having been boiled two or three times, and the bath should be “purified by flame.” Servants who wait at the table should, it is urged wear gloves which are boiled after each meal and dried by hot air in order to avoid all risk of contamination for the guests, and should, after washing their hands with soap and boiled water, cleanse them in alcohol. Domestic animals are, of course, banned as being dreadfully unsafe. Even the hitherto apparently harmless canary is considered capable of communicating disease. One might adopt a famous American epigram: “Be hygienic, and you will be healthy; bnt you will misa a lot of fun.”