INFECTION IN BOOKS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 402, 14 September 1889, Page 3

INFECTION IN BOOKS.

Since it has become pretty well established that most, if not all, of our so-called infectious and contagious diseases, such as scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles and possibly typhoid fevoi, are produced and conveyed Irom one person to another by means of minute vegetable v germg, much patient study has been devoted to the question how these germs find, thei^ way. into the human body, and what precautions should be taken to avoid, as fai»,a ( s possible, the danger of infection. „,,", „ .\ The subject of'tjlie isolation of', patients suffering from contagious diseases has, been-, disciU'se^d very thoroughly in medical societies and journals, And in some countries tho most stringent la\ys have been made in regard to the isolation- t>f the sick and the fumigation) of houses jftnd,clothingi One source of contagion which now seeni3 self-evident, bub which for a long time escaped attention," is *^hat of „ books from public libraries. When we consider that the volumes which we are reading may have been last in the hands of some one convalescent from a dread, disease, or that it may have been lying for days or weeks in rooms far from clean in a medical sense, then the possibility of danger becomes at once apj parent. Some physicians will ,nob permit their children to take books out of public libraries, thinking ib wiser to avoid all .risks. # ( i It is very possible, however, that the danger is leas than we should be led by some to suppose, and tthatit,is-no more necessary to prohibit the reading of books for whose cleanliness we cannot vouchbhan it is to tell our children to stop breathing, 1 simply because they undoubtedly take into their lungs at every, respiration some of, the ferms which are known to be constantly oating through the air. * Yet ib is safe to caution those who read books that have beon through many » hands nob to moisten the linger in turning the leaves, for if that be done there is afforded a better opportunity for the transfer into the body of any germ that may be clinging to the volume. ; ■ ■ On the other hand,;it is to bo remembered bhab we probably run no greater risk in turning the leaves of a book, ovon though it has been in homes of doubtful sanitaxy condition, than we do in riding ,or walking beside people about whose health , wo know nothing. .. , , >