A132-815-5m 
TEN LESSONS 
ON THE 
PREVENTION OF DISEASE 
(1) Home Sanitation. 
(2) Stimulants. 
(3) Personal Hygiene. 
(4) Accidents. 
(5) Our Uninvited Guests. 
(6) Preventable Diseases, No 1. 
(7) Preventable Diseases, No. 2. 
(8) Vital Statistics. 
(9) School Sanitation. 
(10) Social Hygiene. 
TO BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH 
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL EXHIBIT 
COMPOSED OF TEN CHARTS ON THE SAME SUBJECTS 
W. A. DAVIS, M. D. 
Texas. 
secretary'state board of health 
AUSTIN, TEXAS 
Copyright*, 1915, by VV. A. Davis "We can have health without education, but we cannot 
have education without health." 
-Governor James E. Ferguson. 
"Good health is the foundation for successful human 
accomplishment, and hygienic living and effective preven- 
tion of disease are the foundation of good health." 
-W. F. Doughty, State Superintendent. A NOTE TO THE TEACHER AS TO THE USE OF THE CHARTS. 
The public schoolroom is the hotbed of communicable diseases, and 
the teacher, of all persons in the community, is most often exposed. 
Since the text-books on the subject of physiology and hygiene have 
not laid any particular stress on the prevention of disease, I have en- 
deavored to prepare ten charts and ten talks on this subject, and at 
the same time to cover the entire field of preventative medicine so far 
as it will interest the child. It is more important to teach the child 
the underlying facts as to the prevention of disease than to teach him 
the internal structures of the human body, and it is by far more profit- 
able to him. It is a difficult undertaking to reach the mother or father 
at home. However, many of them need instruction, and it will be seen 
that many lessons are intended to be carried home. I have, at times, 
introduced a little excursion, hoping that the side trip would assist in 
holding the child's interest. Some of the language is very simple and 
some of a technical nature, expressions are used that are near slang. 
None of the statistics can be denied, no imaginary theories are exploited, 
no new remedies are recommended; a simple, plain, substantial talk on 
each subject is offered to be used as you see proper. 
The pictures are to secure the attention and make the impression. 
The title of the chart is the subject, the printed matter on the chart is 
the text. The talk is a suggestion as to the manner of teaching the 
lesson, and you must teach it if it is to benefit the pupil. 
Select such parts of the talks as you can use, study the subject and 
add to it from your general fund of information, and put yourself into 
the talks just as far as possible. 
When the charts reach you, carry them to your room, read each talk, 
study the picture and when you have grasped the idea, then begin and 
use the chart, one each day or each week, as you see fit. A prize may 
be offered for the best quiz, or essay on the charts. If the charts are 
used only one day each week, the parents may be invited to the school 
for that hour. They may thus derive some benefit. 
The suggestive questions are merely suggestive. If time will permit 
much benefit will accrue if a quiz is held on each chart the day after 
the lesson is taught, making a four weeks' course. The parents may be 
invited to attend the talks, and the county superintendent or the local 
health officer may be asked to lecture on the charts. 
The contents of "Mother's Medicine Chest," or "The First Aid Box," 
may be copied on the blackboard or on paper and be sent home. 4 
Take the charts home with you or lock them in your desk, do not leave 
them hanging on the wall. Give the pupils one picture and one talk 
only at a time, and do not show them the other pictures. 
To hang the chart tie a string about forty inches long from one eye 
to the other, drive two nails thirty inches apart in the wall, and hang 
string over them. This will allow each chart to turn backward. 
I shall be glad to answer any questions as to this course. Offer any 
criticism as to either talk or picture that you wish. I shall prepare 
another booklet more complete and full, and I hope of more assistance 
to the teacher than this one may be. I expect to get it ready by next 
term, and your criticism will assist me in perfecting it. 
These charts have cost you nothing. All I ask is that you tell me 
what you think of them. The many hours of work that they have cost 
me will not have been lost if you enter into the spirit of the subject, 
and we, together, can save just a few of the many lives that are lost from 
downright carelessness each year in Texas, or, if I have called your 
attention to some fact that will assist you in protecting yourself from 
some of the loathsome diseases that all teachers are exposed to, I am 
well paid. A year's salary will not pay you if you contract tuberculosis 
from the dust in the schoolroom, or syphilis from some drinking cup 
used by an unfortunate pupil. 
W. A. Davis, M. D., 
Texas State Board of Health. 5 
HOME SANITATION. 
INTRODUCTORY STORY. 
Imagine a nest away up in a tree, where the shade from the leaves 
and the breeze kept the little birds sleepy all day, while the mother and 
father birds were off in the fields gathering food. The old birds had 
worked hard gathering sticks and grass, and strings, and had knitted 
them into a nest. Long before the eggs were laid the parent birds had 
lined the nest with cotton and feathers and had made it soft, for the 
little birds have few feathers and the skin is tender, and the rough 
sticks scratch them. For many days the birds had worked. 
One morning when the father bird was upon the topmost branch sing- 
ing to the mother, who was trying to keep the eggs warm so that they 
would hatch, a little bird awoke to find another birdie in the nest with 
him under his mother's breast. The mother bird called to the father, 
and after they had looked at the little ones, the work of gathering food 
began. As the days passed, the birds grew larger, though the nest was 
the same size. One little bird was out of humor one morning, pushed 
the food over the side of the nest and grew so hungry before the parents 
came back that he picked out the cotton and feathers that had lined 
the nest and threw them down. Every day or two he would try to 
push the other birdie out of the nest, until one day when he had almost 
ruined the home, he pushed the other little bird so hard that the nest 
fell to pieces, and his sister bird dropped all the way to the ground and 
struck a large stone and was killed. When the mother and father came 
back and found the nest torn to pieces and the little bird dead, they 
made so much noise that the farmer thought that a snake had ruined 
the birds' home. No one ever knew how it happened except the other 
little bird. The mother and father fed him, but he was too young to 
fly, there were no feathers on his wings; and one night during a storm, 
the mother and father bird could not get him up into the tree where he 
should have been, and he was lost. Such a naughty bird to have ruined 
such a nice home. Many children ruin a comfortable home and spoil 
their own lives when the parents are working all day long to make a 
home happy for them. 
DEFINITION. 
A home is the place where the family lives. No matter whether it is 
a hut or a house. It is the duty of the children to help the parents 
make the home happy. For a home to be a happy one, it must be 
clean and healthy, and when a home is clean and healthy, it is a sani- 6 
HOME SANITATION 
(Wat dves fam 7 
iary home. Filth causes sickness and disease, sickness and disease cause 
sorrow and poverty. Sorrow and poverty will take all the happiness 
from the home. 
Home sanitation is a process that rids the home of filth and disease 
and makes it clean, .healthy and happy for the children and parents. 
THE APPEARANCE OF THE HOME. 
Look at the lower picture. Has your home an appearance such as 
this? The condition of the home is an indication of the happiness. A 
dirty, filthy home is a miserable home, and a clean, neat home is a happy 
home. A home without the doors and windows screened, with flies and 
mosquitoes in the house, and fleas under it, means disease for the chil- 
dren and poverty for the parents and failure in life for all. A sick child 
cannot succeed in school, and failure in school leads to failure in after 
life. Every home should be clean and neat in appearance, for the neigh- 
bor that passes notices the filth and trash, the stranger forms a bad 
opinion of the mother because she is slovenly, the father because he 
cares little for his family and the children because they do not try to 
help mother and father make the home healthy and happy. 
EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE. 
In the picture below the chicken is on the front gallery, the cow in 
the front yard, the fences are down, but in the picture above you do 
not see the pig and chickens picking around the privy. At your home 
do the chickens go into the garden and scratch up the vegetables or into 
the front yard and ruin the flowers? Keep everything in its place. 
The children may leave the bucket sitting on the ground or they may 
put it upon the curbing. All these conditions may be due to the care- 
lessness of the children. 
Have you at your home a trash can or barrel, or do you throw the 
cans, bottles, papers, and filth on the yard? Have you a slop bucket 
and an ash can, or do you throw the slop and ashes on the yard ? 
THE PRIVY. 
Is there a door and a screen in front of your privy at home, or do 
the chickens and pigs pick around it as in the picture below? Does the 
water drain down to tire well, and do you leave the bucket on the ground ? 
The privy is a necessity of the home, though many have no privy. The 
privy is one of the most dangerous places around the home, both to the 
morals and the health of the children. It should be perfectly clean, 
there should be no bad odor. If the father cannot afford a disinfectant, 8 
such as lime, the ashes from the kitchen stove and the fireplace, if used 
regularly, will keep down much of the odor and danger. If your privy 
at home is not sanitary and cannot be kept so, write the State Board 
of Health, Austin, Texas, and you will be furnished plans for a sanitary 
privy. Never write or mark on the walls. If the privy is not painted 
it should be frequently whitewashed. It should be screened so that the 
flies cannot get into any part of it. It should have at least one large 
window, so that it may be well lighted and aired. A clean privy in the 
back yard is worth more to the children than a player piano in the parlor, 
if you can't have both. 
THE WELL. 
A greater part of the human body is composed of water, so should the 
greater part of the food that you take be water. But if the rain washes 
the filth from the privy into the well the water is poison, and is not fit 
for food. The water supply of a city taken from a river is poisonous 
if the watershed of the river drains farms or ranches that are occupied; 
the poison from the privies washes into the river during the rain. 
Many epidemics of typhoid fever, dysentery and other diseases have 
been controlled by stopping the use of water from such wells or rivers. 
A closed well with a pump is better than an open well, but if an open 
well is used the bucket and rope should be kept clean. 
The plate from which you eat your food is washed after each meal, 
yet the bucket or tank from which you drink your water is sometimes 
never washed. Moss grows in the bucket and the sediment of filth that 
accumulates in the tank or cistern is so foul that the odor is sickening. 
You cannot eat stale butter because of the odor, but the accumulation in 
the bottom of the tank, or well from which you drink your water is 
frequently more foul than stale butter. The only difference is you can 
smell the stale food, but you cannot see the poisonous sediment in the 
well or tank. No time can be set for cleaning the tank or well except 
that it should be kept as clean as any other food container. When the 
well cannot be cleaned, or the city will not furnish pure water, the 
water should be boiled so as to kill the germ life and settle the stuff 
that has drained into it from the surface of the ground. Boil the water 
at night, and the next morning draw it off from the top so as not to 
disturb the sediment. It is safer to have a sanitary well at the side 
of the house than a medicine chest in mother's room. 
THE SLEEPING PORCH. 
The use of powder and paint on the face has spread from the un- 
civilized to the civilized nations and is used to hide a natural condition 
of the skin. Begun by those on the stage who wished to disguise them- 9 
selves or to imitate certain characters, the use of powder and paint has 
become universal. One of the best ways of bringing color to the face 
and brightness to the eye is to sleep in the open. Energy and vigor is 
given the body and expression to the face that cannot be gained by 
adopting the methods of the savage. Every home should have a sleeping 
porch. Every sleeping porch should be screened against the fly, mos- 
quito and night insects. A lack of sound sleep and fresh, pure air 
wears away the body and decreases the vitality until the germs that 
cause disease can multiply and kill the body. Sleep in the open air is 
more refreshing, and the sleeping porch renders the body less liable to 
cold. In this way children who sleep on a sleeping porch are more 
healthy and strong, and less liable to colds, coughs and consumption 
than those who do not. But the sleeping porch in the picture below is 
a dangerous one. The holes let the flies in by day and the mosquitoes 
in by night. It is better to have no screening at all than like this. 
Such places may be patched very cheaply with wire gauze or cloth of 
same color. 
UNDER THE HOUSE. 
The yard may be clear of weeds and the house well kept, yet some 
homes that appear to be sanitary are unhealthy because trash and filth 
are allowed to accumulate under the house. It may improve the ap- 
pearance of the yard to rake the trash under the house, but it does not 
add to the health of the family. When the house is built the surface 
under the house should be filled in until it is 12 or 18 inches higher 
than the yard. Large openings should be left so that plenty of air may 
pass under the house. These openings should be screened, as are the 
windows and doors. The musty smell so common in many homes is 
due to the conditions under the floor. This odor when breathed by the 
child may not be poisonous in itself, but it is not the pure, fresh air 
necessary for the growth of the children. 
Before the yard is cleaned everything that is loose should be raked 
from under the house, and if there are any water holes or damp places 
they should be filled and lime sprinkled over them. To clean the yard 
by raking the trash under the house is like putting your hat on before 
your hair is combed. When the space under the house is clean, then 
the weeds and trash, cans and other refuse should be removed from the 
yard and burned, and the damp places filled and covered with lime. Do 
not throw the trash on a vacant lot. 
After the fences are repaired and the barn and outhouses are in good 
condition, when the privy is sanitary and the well is not a source of 
THE VACANT LOT. 10 
poison, when the roof does not leak and the screen keeps out the flies 
and mosquitoes, when all the trash is taken from the yard and the space 
under the house is dry, your home may be still miserable from sickness 
because of the street or alley or your neighbor's lot. 
From the standpoint of health, the responsibility does not end with 
the land line. Disease does not stop at the fence. If the refuse and 
trash from your house is thrown on a vacant lot the papers will blow 
into your own lot or that of your neighbor's; the flies that hatch in the 
filth will fly into your own dining room, or that of your neighbor's. 
Burn all refuse. See that the road or street in front and at the side 
of your home is as clean as your yard, or the vacant lot across the 
street, if unsanitary, may cause sickness in your home. Your home is 
not safe as long as the neighbor's family is sickly, or his home filthy, 
or his lot full of weeds and trash, and if the neighbor's home or lot 
across the street may cause sickness in your home, you must see that it, 
too, as well as your own lot, is clear of cans, bottles, weeds, trash and 
filth. It is a duty to help the neighbor to keep his premises sanitary; 
a duty you owe to your neighbor and to yourself. It is better to have 
no flowers in the front yard than to have filth in the adjoining lot. 
roadside cleanliness. 
Some country roadsides are a tangle of weeds, briars, grass, a pain- 
ful, hateful screen to the beautiful fields lying beyond. In some coun- 
ties these insanitary weeds have been totally gotten rid of by combined 
efforts of the school children. 
INSIDE THE HOME. 
Sanitation is cleanliness. A person may become accustomed to filth 
outside or inside the home until it is not noticed. The appearance of a 
home may be excellent, yet there may be dangers to health that are never 
seen. The dust that accumulates upon a lace curtain may contain the 
germs that cause consumption, and the dirt under the matting or carpet 
may be as deadly poison as can be bought at a drug store. 
Even the crack in the floor may contain a poison that will produce 
lockjaw when a splinter is run into a child's foot. 
MATS ANp CARPETS. 
No mat or carpet should be tacked to the floor; all floor coverings and 
curtains and the space back of the pictures should be dusted when the 
floor is swept. The wall should be swept the same as the floor. Each 
week all the woodwork should be wiped oft with furniture polish or a 11 
mixture of equal parts of linseed oil and turpentine. Every day, in 
winter as well as in summer, the curtains should be raised and the 
windows opened and the sunlight and fresh air admitted. The sun- 
light may fade the carpet, but it will bring color to the children's cheeks. 
CLOSETS. 
All soiled clothing or bedding should be placed in the open air and 
sunshine, and never in a dark closet. All closets should have an outside 
window or door so as to admit fresh air and sunshine, and this window 
should be kept open all day. 
HOME HOSPITAL. 
Until the Federal, the State and the city governments are given un- 
limited power in controlling communicable diseases, and until the people 
are taught how to protect themselves, such diseases will slip into every 
family. No home is complete without a sick room. This room should 
be furnished for such, and different from every other room in the house. 
It should have an abundance of windows so as to admit sunlight and 
fresh air from every direction. No curtains on the windows, but blinds 
on the outside. No rugs, but the floors painted. Walls either plastered 
or painted so that they may be washed. All furniture either metal or 
painted white with enamel. It should contain the medicine chest, with 
a set of dishes and linen used in this room alone. This room should 
be made the most comfortable room in the house. It should contain 
no pictures that are too valuable to be burned. When any of the family 
is feeling bad they should occupy this room until the cause of the 
trouble is discovered. 
Mother's room is usually the most comfortable room, but the mother 
can make the sick room just as comfortable. The dresser in this room 
should contain all those things used in a sick room. 
If your home has no room built for this purpose and anyone is taken 
sick, take everything from the room not necessary for the comfort of 
the patient and prepare it as the sick room. When the patient has been 
carried to' the hospital or has recovered, all the linen sheets, towels, 
napkins and bed clothes used in this room should be boiled and then 
laundered and placed in this dresser in this room for future use. All 
dishes, spoons, knives and forks and vessels should be boiled and sent 
back to this room. The room should be fumigated, and then scoured, 
not only the floors, but also the walls, woodwork, doors and windows and, 
if possible, repainted. 
All this will cost some money and much trouble, but not near so much 
as a second. case of typhoid fever, or an epidemic of measles or mumps, 12 
or another death in the family. The proper handling of these diseases 
will protect the family, and the careless handling will spread such dis- 
ease. The parent who allows a disease to continue in the family is 
either ignorant or careless. 
DINING ROOM AND KITCHEN. 
The kitchen should be the cleanest room in the home. Many diseases 
occur because of the carelessness in handling, of the food. The cooking 
utensils are washed after the meal and hung up to receive all the dust 
that is raised when the kitchen is swept. All vessels should be washed 
just before using. The dining room should be well lighted and venti- 
lated and screened, so that no insects can get in. All food, including 
water and milk, should be kept in closed vessels. The ice box, if not 
scoured every' day, may become a source of danger. The mould that 
grows in the ice box, if dropped into the food, may be poisonous. 
Water and milk are the two most important foods that are taken 
without being cooked. Milk is so valuable an article of diet that it 
should be used freely in the home. The child should make milk its 
principal diet. But the ice box must be clean or the milk will be un- 
wholesome. All milk should be in covered vessels and in a compart- 
ment for milk alone, and nothing else, next to the ice. If there is no 
ice box in the home, a milk cooler should be made so that the milk may 
be set in the water with a cloth over it, which will be kept moistened 
from the water around it. Milk absorbs gases, and when not kept cold 
germs multiply rapidly and the milk that is good for food in the 
morning may become poisonous by noon. 
When there is any sediment in the glass or bottle of milk, you may 
be sure that there is much more of the same substance in solution, and 
the boy who does the milking should be whipped for being so filthy, or 
if the milk is bought from the dairy, the milkman should be indicted 
for criminal carelessness in selling impure food. When you realize 
that this sediment is usual cow manure from the barnyard, it is readily 
seen that while such sediment may not be poison in itself, it is not food 
suitable for children. 
If the kitchen is properly screened the flies cannot get in. If all 
food and water is properly covered, the rats and mice will starve to 
death. 
It is the filth in the kitchen and dining room that attracts the flies 
and the careless handling of food that keeps the mice, rats and cock- 
roaches. To turn over the keeping of the kitchen and the cooking of 
the food to a filthy cook is more dangerous than to have a mad dog in 
the yard. 13 
Unless the children close the screens behind them and keep the top 
on the slop bucket the mother may fight flies all day and smoke the 
mosquitoes out at night, and yet feed her family the poison of dysentery 
for breakfast, typhoid for dinner and tuberculosis for supper. 
Silverware, china and cut glass dishes add to the appearance, but a 
clean tin plate that has been boiled is safer than a silver plate with a 
fly speck. 
ARTIFICIAL HEAT. 
Ruskin said that "Sunshine is delicious, rain refreshing, wind braces 
up, snow is exhilarating, that there is really no such thing as bad 
weather-only different kinds of good weather," and such is true. The 
only absolute necessity for a comfortable home is a good roof, and any 
house having a good roof may be made comfortable. The horse and 
cow need only a shed, or a shelter. Nature provides for them a heavy 
suit for the cold of winter, and when allowed a diet of their own selec- 
tion, nature cures the grass of the late summer by drying out of it all 
the sap and preparing a heat producing food suitable for cold weather. 
The nearer man lives to nature as to the manner of housing and diet, 
the more perfect he will be in physical build. It is close housing, 
crowded homes, over-heated, under-ventilated rooms and artificial diet 
that is reducing our nation to a race of nervous wrecks and physical 
pygmies. The best built apartment houses cannot take the place of 
country air. Instead of sanitary apartment houses in the manufacturing 
districts, build the factories in the country. Instead of artificial heat 
in the home from the stove or fireplace, dress so that your body will 
save the heat that it manufactures from food that is pure and suited to 
the time of the year and the work you are doing. Pure air, no matter 
whether cold or warm, day or night, does not cause disease if the body 
is properly clothed and fed. To attempt to supply clothing and heat 
for the body by closing the windows and making fire in the stove will 
produce disease. Artificial heat in the home in place of suitable food 
weakens the body and lowers the resistive power against disease. 
Fresh air in the home with the stove in the stomach is better than a 
modern heater with the windows down. 
mother's -medicine chest. 
All medicine is poison when not properly used. 
Every home should contain certain drugs and they should be in a chest 
and kept locked, and the mother only should have the key. The chest 
should not contain any bottle without a label, or any bottle that contains 
any unknown contents, or any drug that you do not know how to use. 
The label on a bottle of patent medicine is no indication of its contents 14 
and the name is selected not with reference to its contents or curative 
value, but for the purpose of making the medicine sell. Patent medi- 
cine contains only such drugs as are known to the medical fraternity, 
and are sold at a profit of from five to five hundred times the real value. 
Keep no patent medicines in the home. 
Mother's medicine chest should contain: 
A 6-ounce bottle of alcohol. 
One-ounce bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia, glass cork. 
Six ounces castor oil. 
One pound salts. 
One-half ounce phosphate sodium. 
One ounce syrup ipecac. 
One can mustard. 
Four ounces equal parts essence ginger and paregoric. 
One-half ounce oil of cloves. 
One package of safety pins. 
One eye cup. 
Three-inch scissors. 
Four ounces boric acid. 
Eight ounces saturated solution of boric acid. 
Two ounces tincture iodine. 
Eight ounces turpentine. 
One quart linseed oil and lime water. 
One-half ounce permanganate of potash. 
Five yards sterile gauze. 
Three bandages, 10 yards (1-inch, 2-inch, and 3-inch). 
One box cotton. 
Bichloride tablets, 7|-grain. 
Carbolized vaseline. 
One clinical thermometer. 
HOW TO USE THEM. 
Alcohol may be used to disinfect wounds, to rub on bruises and sprains. 
Aromatic spirits ammonia is a stimulant, may be used in fainting, 
shock oi' weakness or for flatulent colic. 
Castor oil is a mild purge. Salts washes out the bowels, while phos- 
phate of sodium, if taken continuously, will stimulate the liver as well 
as act on the bowels. 
Syrup of ipecac and powdered mustard internally will produce vomit- 
ing. Syrup of ipecac will relieve croup, while mustard plasters give 
relief from pain. 
Paregoric and ginger may be used for colic. 15 
Oil of cloves may be used for toothache, on a small piece of cotton 
placed in the cavity. 
Boric acid as a dusting powder is the best of all. A solution of boric 
acid in water, used in any eye cup as a wash, will cure many cases of 
sore eyes. 
Sterile gauze should be placed over every wound. 
Tincture iodine as a dressing in wounds is excellent, but while severe, 
may be used as a remedy for many eruptions of the skin. 
Turpentine taken in small doses, two to five drops, will relieve certain 
forms of colic, as a gargle in sore throat, and a dressing in cuts, and 
puncture wounds where lockjaw may occur. 
Bichloride tablets dissolved in water should be used as a wash in every 
case where the skin is broken. 
For burns, linseed oil and limewater or soda, while for snake bites, 
permanganate of potash, and for stings, common cooking soda. 
Tell the story of the naughty bird. 
What is a home? 
What is a sanitary home ? 
How can you tell when the home is happy ? 
Upon whom does home sanitation depend? 
Where are the chief dangers in a home? 
How may a closet or privy be made sanitary? 
How is a well made poisonous? 
What is the danger of damp ground underneath the house ? 
Why is it best to sleep on a sleeping porch? 
Who is responsible for the vacant lot ? 
How should a home be cleaned? 
Where should soiled clothes be placed? 
Why should the kitchen be the cleanest room in the house? 
What are the dangers of an ice box? Of a dark closet? Of a filthy 
cook? A dirty well, or trash under the house? 
How may a child make the home sanitary? 
How may weeds in the yard spread disease ? 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 16 
STIMULANTS 
•^7^/1^. 
Ore Mt 17 
STIMULANTS. 
If there is a boy or girl in the public schools of Texas who does not 
expect to have a home when they are grown, he or she should not be 
allowed the benefit of the public schools. 
The purpose of the public school is to make citizens by developing 
the mind, building the character, and perfecting the body. Anything 
that holds back the development of the character, the mind, or the 
body is an enemy to the child and to the public school. The study of 
books develops the mind, and with the advice and training of the teacher, 
builds the character. 
The food that is eaten builds the body. Certain books that are read 
may lead to habits that weaken the body. Bad books may dwarf the 
character. While this is strange, it is very plain that certain things 
taken into the stomach will weaken the body, dwarf the character and 
ruin the mind. 
Stimulants are absorbed and carried by the blood into the nervous 
system and the brain. They excite the nervous system and the nerve 
makes the muscles and the organs of the body do more work. This may 
be repeated time after time, but work requires strength, and each time 
that the nerve makes the muscles do such overwork, the muscles lose 
just that much strength and are weakened. It is just like whipping a 
poor, heavily-loaded horse. He may go faster each time he is whipped, 
but he loses just that much strength, and the time will come when he 
can go no farther. So the muscles and organs of the body may be 
whipped up time after time and may be forced to work by stimulating 
the nerves, but the time will come when they can work no more. 
Food is necessary to replace the strength that is lost when work is 
done. Some physicians have been so foolish as to contend that coffee, 
tea, whisky, and alcohol are foods. Coffee contains a small amount of 
fat and oil, so small, however, that to get one pound of the fat you 
would have to drink eleven gallons of coffee, as it is usually made, and 
three-fourths of a pound of butter would furnish your body more food. 
Tea also contains a small amount of food. The same kind of food 
that is found in the egg, but in order to get the food value of two eggs 
you must drink 112 gallons of tea, as it is served on the table. 
If you drink eleven gallons of coffee you would get one and one-fourth 
ounces of caffeine. Caffeine is the stimulant in the coffee. It is a very 
powerful and poisonous drug and the usual dose is one-half grain. In 
order to get the food value of three-fourths pound of butter, you must 18 
drink eleven gallons of coffee, containing 1140 doses of caffeine. If you 
drink enough tea to get the food value of two eggs, you will take 11,078 
doses of caffeine, so it is foolish to talk of tea or coffee being a food, 
when they are poisons. The caffeine in tea and coffee stimulates the 
brain, it increases the rapidity of thought, makes the heart beat faster, 
and produces a condition where the person talks without knowing what 
he says, walks without seeing where he goes, and is not responsible for 
what he does. A man may get drunk on caffeine just the same as on 
whisky. By increasing the beat of the heart the blood-vessels are filled 
too full, and a congestion of the kidneys and liver is produced. These 
organs are overworked, and after awhile, before a man and woman are 
old in age, they are old in body. 
Sixty-seven per cent of the pupils in the public schools use coffee or 
tea, 33 per cent do not. Coffee and tea are powerful stimulants, they 
lead to habits that cannot be broken, they produce old age in young 
people, they hold back the development of the body and mind, they bring 
on premature decay of the body. 
• Only 33 per cent of the school children of Texas have a chance to 
receive the full benefits of an education and to develop the body to the 
fullest extent. 
Sixty-seven per cent have not this chance, because they are forming 
the desire for stimulants by drinking coffee and tea. 
Tobacco' is a violent poison. You have heard that a straw drawn 
through the stem of an old pipe laid on a cat's nose will kill it. Whether 
this is true or not, tobacco is poisonous. When first taken tobacco pro- 
duces vomiting, but a person may become accustomed to- it until it acts 
as a brace and quiets the nervous system just as a. cup of coffee or a 
drink of whisky. 
Tobacco affects the heart and after long use produces what is called 
tobacco heart, wdth an irregular, rapid pulse. It produces constipation, 
stops digestion, destroys the appetite. When smoked, it leads to sore 
throat and cancer of the lip or tongue. Some persons can stand more 
than others. It does not affect all alike. It is not a food, and is fit 
only for the purpose of poultices, a medical clip for cattle or an anti- 
septic wash for shrubbery. 
Alcohol contains no food. It stimulates the heart and nervous sys- 
tem, enlarges the liver, congests the kidneys and bloats the face, leaving 
a man with a red nose. It, too, like coffee, will make him say things 
that he does not hear, and go where he cannot see. Makes him drunk, 
and he acts like a fool, disgracing himself and his family. 
Tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol are not foods, but drugs, and should 
not be taken except on the advice of a physician. Each has its place 
in medicine, but not in the boy's pocket. A boy may take a small par- 19 
tide of strychnine or arsenic without killing him, but unless there is 
need for it, unless there is some purpose for it, these drugs will do him 
harm even in small doses. Stimulants are of this same character. When 
taken into the stomach they stop digestion, and the appetite for food 
is lost and the body loses strength from lack of food. This loss of 
strength calls for more food, but the appetite is gone, digestion is bad, 
and so more coffee, tea, whisky, of tobacco is taken in order to whip 
up the nervous system. And the habit is formed, and the boy is doomed. 
Constipation occurs and his body is affected from -the poison absorbed 
from food that is retained too long in the bowels. Pains and aches 
come in different parts of the body. The heart is stimulated and over- 
worked and underfed. The kidneys and all the organs suffer the same 
way. Food will not relieve this condition, so more tobacco, tea, coffee 
or whisky must be taken. The will power is gone, the brain is weakened 
and the boy cannot resist the habit. Character and reputation is blighted 
and he does not care. Habit has taken control and manhood and ambi- 
tion is lost, and he is a slave. Such slavery is more degrading than any 
other form, for in the end the man can see the results. His physician 
may advise him that he must stop, but he cannot. 
The lungs are intended for pure air, not for tobacco smoke. It was 
believed once that tobacco smoke would ward off disease, but we know 
now that it does not. If a person would resist disease, the body must 
be kept on a high plane of vitality, and pure air is one of the essentials 
to vitality. Stimulants lower vitality and reduce the resistive power 
and lead to disease. Tobacco smoke stains the teeth and causes decay. It 
remains in the lungs and gradually coats the mucous membrane and cuts 
off the supply of air. When pneumonia or grippe has taken hold, the 
lung has not the chance to recover that it would have were it not covered 
with tobacco smoke. 
The stomach is intended for food. Coffee, tea, and alcohol are not 
foods. Tea and alcohol will tan the stomach just as the tanner tans the 
bide with oak bark. When the stomach is continually abused with tea 
and alcohol, it cannot digest the food and finally rebels to such an 
extent that it will not retain anything. If beer, champagne and wine 
contained no alcohol, they would not be drunk. It is the alcohol in 
them all that leads to the habit and does the harm. 
Pure air is free, but food costs money. Five cents every day for 
tobacco, if saved for a year, will buy ten sacks of flour, fifteen bushels 
of potatoes, or one-half barrel of molasses. The money wasted for one 
cup of coffee each day will furnish you an egg for breakfast and dinner, 
or one-fourth pound of rice for supper. Ten cents a- day spent for 
beer will buy your father a new hat, a pair of good shoes, a new shirt, 
collar and tie, and a suit of all wool clothes. Fifteen cents a day spent 20 
for whisky, if saved, will get your mother a new dress, hat and shoes, 
two magazines and a daily paper. It is not the first chew of tobacco 
or cigarette, nor the first glass of beer or drink of whisky, nor the first 
cup of coffee or glass of ice tea, but it is the habit that kills your soul, 
body, mind and money. 
Look at the pictures. If your parents have wasted their money on 
stimulants and you have been deprived of some things that other children 
have had, you are to be pitied. You have inherited a taste for stimu- 
lants and you can never be safe if you use any kind. A mild stimulant 
used for a while creates a demand for more, and then for stronger ones. 
Tobacco, coffee, and tea must be increased if the same effect is secured. 
A child born of such parents inherits a taste and a demand for stimu- 
lants. When the habit is formed for any stimulant, that stimulant must 
be increased or be replaced by a stronger one. 
The child also inherits an unstable nervous system and a weakened 
will power, and should never take any stimulant of any character. A 
man may be able to quit a bad habit in his old age, he may throw away 
the bottle or the pipe, but his hands are tied and his back is humped 
from the effects. It is no disgrace for a girl to peddle shoe strings and 
pencils, but the child is to be pitied if the habits of its parents have 
forced such work upon it, so that it is kept from school. 
It is no disgrace to sell papers. It is said that many great men have 
sold papers when they were boys, but for a boy to be born into the world 
crippled and given a natural taste and a- desire for a stimulant so strong 
that he cannot resist it because of the habits of his parents, is indeed 
very unfortunate. 
The boy who does not abuse his body with stimulants, who does not 
waste his money on tobacco, tea, coffee and alcohol, who does not form 
habits that tie his hands for life, may carry a cane when he is grown, 
but not because he needs it. His body will be erect, his eyes clear, his 
judgment keen. 
If you come from a family that is not addicted to such habits you 
should be careful not to form these habits, for you may not only ruin 
your own life, but disgrace your parents. Flowers and books are more 
pleasant to carry than shoe strings and papers. To go to school is more 
profitable than to have to peddle for a living. 
A child suffers from the habits that its parents formed when they 
were children. 
Before you begin the use of tobacco, tea, coffee or whisky, find some 
old man like the one in the lower picture; watch him and decide whether 
you will take him as your model. Find some old woman like this one; 
look at her, and see if, when you are old, you wish to look like her. 21 
Then look at the children and decide if you wish your children to look 
like theirs. And when you decide, stick to it. 
The habit of using stimulants not only affects a boy, but when he has 
grown old his children are affected. The only safe way is never to touch 
any stimulant. Never learn the taste and you will not have the desire. 
What is the difference between a food and a stimulant? 
How do books affect the character? 
How do stimulants affect the character? 
What is the effect on the body? 
Which is better for a poor horse, a feed of oats or a whip ? 
What drug is in coffee and tea? What effect does it have? 
Are coffee and tea foods ? 
What poison is in tobacco? 
What effect does smoking have on the lungs? Throat? Mouth? 
Lips? And on the character? 
What effect does tea and alcohol have on the stomach? 
What is the cost of 5 cents worth of tobacco, or one cup of coffee a day ? 
How does coffee and tea drinking lead to the habit of drinking whisky? 
Why cannot a person quit a habit? 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 22 
PERSONAL 
HYGIENE 
tody a G/w 
dure /tody 
to 23 
PERSONAL HYGIENE. 
In the Greek temple might have been seen a goddess, seated, with a 
vessel in her hand feeding a serpent. This goddess was called "Hygeia, 
the Goddess of Health," and was worshipped by the Grecians. 
We no longer worship Hygeia, nor do we make an idol to her honor, 
but we attempt to live according to the laws of hygiene, so as to avoid 
disease. Hygiene, like sanitation, means cleanliness, and is applied to 
man's surroundings, while hygiene is applied to man himself. The two 
words are in a way interchangeable. 
PURPOSE OE HYGIENE. 
If one would reach an ideal he must have an ideal. If one would get 
the most out of life, he must know what is to be gotten. If one would 
be healthy and strong, he must know what a strong man is, then he 
must study the manner of living so as to reach that ideal and get the 
most out of life by being healthy and strong. He must know the pur- 
pose of each organ of his body, and how to take care of that organ. 
He must know wrhat things interfere with these organs and what con- 
ditions retard their work, and then avoid all these things. All this 
along with cleanliness is hygiene. 
THE DAILY BATH. 
Cleanliness goes hand in hand with godliness. Bodily filth retards 
the development of the body, mind and soul. For a filthy body leads 
to unclean thoughts and habits, and an unclean mind and soul. An 
habitually dirty citizen is a menace to the community and should be 
treated as such. 
We wash our hands and face before and after each meal, but the 
morning bath is more important than the bathing of hands and face. 
The body throws off a certain amount of refuse matter through the 
pores of the skin. When this refuse matter is allowed to remain on the 
skin, or is rubbed off on the clothing, and the clothing is not changed 
as often as it should be, an odor of stale perspiration is sent out from 
the body. When the body is diseased this odor is more objectionable 
because it is especially foul. Unless the skin is kept clean and this 
refuse matter is washed off each day, pimples, chafes, boils and eruptions 
follow, besides rendering one's self objectionable to his associates. No 24 
amount of perfume or deodorizing powders can take the place of a daily 
bath, nor will such methods disguise this disgusting odor of filth. There 
are three essentials to the bath,-water, soap and towel. By the free 
use of soap you assist the water in dissolving the refuse matter and 
loosening up the dead skin, and with the towel you remove the loosened 
skin and surplus water. Any home may have a bathroom. All that is 
necessary is a tub, water, soap and a towel. A galvanized wash tub 
will do, though not so convenient as a bath tub and a flesh brush. If 
you have no water system, build the bathhouse near the well. 
Do not dry the body on the soiled underclothes, for you rub back into 
the skin what the skin has thrown off, but use a clean towel. Whether 
the daily bath be cold or warm water depends upon the custom. One 
thing in bathing, always bathe before the meal, whether the bath be cold 
or hot, in winter or summer, never bathe for an hour or so after meals. 
Cold morning baths, begun in the summer, may be taken daily through 
the winter months, if the body is rubbed briskly with a towel after the 
bath. The body should be thoroughly dry and warmly clothed before 
leaving the bathroom. The daily bath is a business proposition rather 
than a pleasure performance. 
THE FOOT BATH. 
The habit of bathing the feet is a bad one. When it is necessary to 
bathe the feet the entire body should be bathed. If, for any reason, 
the system demands a foot bath, the physician will advise its use. Cold 
or hot foot baths disturb the circulation and are injurious unless the 
entire body is subjected to the same bath at the same temperature. 
After a long walk, or a hard day's work, it is as safe to soak your head 
as your feet. 
THE FOOT. 
Where children have growing pains they should have their feet exam- 
ined hy an experienced physician. Eighty per cent of growing pains 
are due to a weakening of the ligaments of the instep, which leads to 
flat foot, and can be relieved by placing a stiff piece of steel in the sole 
of the shoe to hold up the arch of the foot. The shoe on the left is 
comfortable because it is rigid from toe to heel, and the manufacturers 
of shoes found out that such rigidity was necessary. This shoe is as 
near the Chinese style as can be worn, unless the foot is bound when the 
bones are soft. Such a shoe may fit the style but cannot fit the foot. 
High heels cause backaches, headaches and .nervousness. 
The weight of the body forces the foot forward into the toe of the 
shoe, mashing bones, ligaments, muscles and nerves into one mass, shaped 
only by the shoe. Such pressure can only be borne when gradually 25 
produced. Attempt the same pressure on the hand and fingers for ten 
minutes without placing the, weight of the body. The shoes should 
allow the same freedom for the foot that the glove allows for the hand, 
and should be fitted with more precision. 
The girl entering womanhood may wreck her own life, and ruin the 
happiness of the home, by allowing her feet to stay wet and cold one day 
in the month. 
Protection should be the only object in the shoe, comfort should guide 
in its selection. The heel and the toe of the shoe should be the same 
height from the ground. Unless the shoe has a flat bottom, under the 
instep should be a steel spring to stiffen the sole and support the arch 
of the foot. 
The primary object of the shoe is to protect the foot. Protection 
from injury by thorns, briars, broken glass, nails, from bruises by stones, 
rocks, or rough places, from cold and from dampness; and a shoe to 
protect from any of these things must have a thick sole. Nothing is 
more dangerous than a cold, wet foot in a wet shoe. Disease of the 
lungs and throat, bad colds, la grippe, tonsilitis, bronchitis and tuber- 
culosis are the results of cold, wet feet and wet shoes. When the boy 
is developing into manhood his life may be wrecked by neglecting to 
change his shoes and socks when his feet are wet. 
Shape the shoe to the foot, and not the foot to the shoe. Never wear 
a shoe that presses more on one portion of the foot than another. The 
fit of the shoe is often shown in the face. Corns and bunions are due 
to improperly fitted shoes, and may be cured by properly fitting shoes. 
The best foot powder is boric acid dusted into the shoe. Every nervous 
child should have rubber heels. The jar of the hard pavement is light- 
ened, and the spinal cord and brain is relieved of many shocks during 
the day. In walking, the foot is the rocking machine of the body. 
When a shoe fits the foot, the heel touches the ground first, then the ball 
of the foot and finally the great toe lifts the body and the step is com- 
plete. In order to stand erect and walk with the natural grace, the 
shoe must fit and the heel must be the same height as the thickness of 
the sole. For a graceful walk the modem high heel does not compare 
with a peg leg. 
The shoe should be neat and polished, the clothing should be clean 
and tidy. Clothes do not make the man, but they may unmake him. 
The character, the habits and thoughts are expressed in the manner of 
dress. Look at the boy on the left-he is thoughtless, careless and lazy. 
His books are torn to pieces and dirty, his name is written on his desk 
and in many other places. He stands at the foot of his class, never 
APPEARANCE. 26 
knows his lesson. Unless he changes, when he is a man he will be in 
the same class of men as he was when a boy,-a failure in life. Look 
at him, anyone would give him a pin and he could pin up his pants. 
He could comb his hair and brush his hat and clothes and appear as 
well as the little gentleman on the right. 
Every girl should know how to sew and should keep her own clothing 
in good condition, but this girl, like the boy, is too lazy to patch her 
apron. She, too, will be a failure in life. Clothing, properly kept, lasts 
longer and looks better, and while patches are not a disgrace, rags are. 
THE EYE. 
When the human body was only one cell, that cell divided and formed 
two cells. This process was continued until every organ was formed. 
Every part of the human body grew equally and the Creator intended 
that each organ should last equally well, but for a long time people have 
overworked certain organs and abused them until it is often the case 
that some organ gives way and is useless even in childhood. Among 
the first parts of the body to give out is the eye. This is due to over- 
work in the daytime, to night work, to tobacco and stimulants, to the 
failure to wash the eye and finally to the fact that many defects of 
sight are not corrected until the eye is permanently lost. 
About 20 per cent of American school children suffer some defect of 
their eyesight; nearly all of which can be completely cured or greatly 
benefited by proper treatment. No child should study at night. If the 
daytime is not wasted there is no necessity for night work. If all the 
lessons cannot be prepared in the daytime, the work should be lightened. 
No child should attempt to read when the eye is red from any cause. 
Reading when there is fever, or when the body is tired, will weaken the 
eye. Never read while lying clown; if too tired to sit up, put down the 
book. Continued redness of the lids, or the eyeball, may be due to 
trachoma, and may be followed by blindness. Frequent styes mean a 
defective lens, and either condition should be under the close observa- 
tion of a physician. Eye strain is responsible for practically all defective 
eyesight, the common varieties of which are cross-eyes, near sight and 
far sight. The book should be held where the eye can read with ease. 
If the book is held at a distance, more or less than 12 to 16 inches from 
the eye, there is a near or far sighted condition of the lenses, and a cor- 
rection should be made by a physician. If this correction is not made 
early in school life the deformity rapidly increases and total blindness 
may occur. A defective eye causes headache, neuralgia, nervousness, 
epilepsy and many other painful conditions. 
A sore eye is due to carelessness. If the eyes are given a daily bath 27 
with a solution of boric acid in an eye cup many troubles may be 
avoided. While the moving picture show is the greatest educational 
movement now in progress, great care should be given the eye, as such 
pictures are very detrimental. Out of sixty persons attending a show, 
in forty-three of them the eye was injured as was shown by the expres- 
sion of the face while leaving the theater. If the eye is affected by the 
glimmer, much injury will result. Moving picture shows should be 
prohibited where I he picture is blurred or unsteady. 
The one purpose of the hat should be to shade the eye, and should 
be worn when in the sunlight. Caps are of little value for they do not 
protect the eye from the light nor the head from the heat. The broad 
brimmed hat on top of the head makes a brighter eye than belladona 
drops. 
THE EAR. 
Earache is a warning signal and should never be disregarded. If the 
pain is not promptly relieved by simple applications, consult a specialist. 
A persistent nasal discharge is not an ordinary cold; it may mean any 
one of several conditions, some of which are serious and require the 
skill of a specialist. 
Probably 25 per cent of our school children have some defect of the 
ear, nose or throat, many of which are unrecognized by the parents. 
THE TEETH. 
Another organ that gives way before it should is the tooth. If the 
teeth be washed after each meal they will last longer, and if washed 
before each meal the digestion of food will be better. When the teeth 
are not washed, particles of food remain between the teeth, and as the 
mouth is open, the dust ladened with all kinds of germs drop on these 
particles of food and grow, and the mouth becomes a hotbed of poisonous 
germs. The enamel is finally softened by the acids of putrification, and 
decay of the tooth begins, just as the heart of a tree rots away. 
The pulp of the tooth is destroyed and the tooth crumbles. This is 
not all the damage that is done. The breath is foul and the odor from 
this decay is carried into the lungs and disease may begin there. Nor 
is this all,-the saliva with this decayed pulp, and these germs of 
putrification, is swallowed and the stomach becomes infected. The same 
germs are planted and grow in the stomach. Were it not for the acid 
juice in the stomach more trouble would occur. When the teeth are sore 
and painful, the food cannot be properly chewed and the stomach is over- 
loaded with work in digesting lumps of food that are swallowed. Care- 
lessness as to the mouth and teeth bring neuralgia, headache, foul 
breath, indigestion, dysentery, and many other troubles. 28 
The white ulcer in the mouth, which is due to neglect, should be 
burned with nitrate of silver and neutralized with common salt solution. 
Pyorrhea, a disease of the gums, due to a germ that usually lives in the 
lower bowel, will cause a. loss of all teeth if not cured. This is also 
due to carelessness. 
Wash the teeth as regularly as the face. Use a stilt brush that will 
remove all the particles of food. No paste, powder or soap is necessary. 
Do not pick the teeth with anything as hard as the tooth. As soon as 
a spot appears that you cannot remove with a brush, get the advice of 
a dentist. Poor nutrition and digestive disorders are frequently traceable 
to decayed or unclean teeth; all of which means unnecessary doctor bills. 
Terrible abscesses of the jaws and glands of the neck are often caused 
by neglected, decaying teeth. Decay of the teeth can always be pre- 
vented, and brushing the teeth is as important as washing the face. 
To cleanse the teeth, the bristles of the brush should be irregular in 
length, and very stiff. Brush the teeth both ways, up and down and 
sideways, on top and bottom, inside and out, then brush the gums and 
the tongue; in fact, wash the whole mouth. A dollar filling is healthier 
than a $50 bridge, and a good brush, properly used, is worth more than 
a carload of paste. 
THE HANDS. 
Now look at your hands. Are your finger nails clean? Do you know 
that the dirt under your finger nail is frequently alive with living germs? 
A clean hand is beautiful, for with it many favors may be done, and a 
nimble finger may produce the sweetest music or the daintiest handy 
work. The statue conceived in the brain of the sculptor and the pic- 
ture in the mind of the artist must be given form by the hand, and the 
fingers, before it can be of any benefit to the world. One of the most 
disgusting things to your associates and dangerous to yourself is a dirty 
hand and filthy finger nails. Filth from your own body is scratched 
off the skin and carried to the mouth by the finger nails. All sorts of 
dead cells and disease germs and decayed matter of every character is 
found under the nail. A person may be elegantly dressed, perfectly 
groomed, but they are absolutely filthy in habit when they bite their 
nails or pick the nose with the finger. Before you put your finger in 
your mouth again think where it has been. Keep the hand clean. Cut 
the nails short. 
If the body is bathed properly and free from vermin it is not neces- 
sary to scratch. The habit of scratching comes from the lower animal, 
and indicates the presence of some parasite. By scratching you carry 
the poison from one portion of the body to another and plant the germs 
that cause boils, carbuncles, blood poisoning and skin eruptions. Never 29 
scratch unless you have the itch. Unless tbe fingers are clean keep them 
out of your mouth, for with your fingers go a portion of all the filth 
of the body as well as disease germs. 
EXERCISE AND PLAY. 
No boy can develop into a strong man, no girl can make of herself a 
beautiful woman, without exercise. The mind cannot do its best in a 
weak body. Physical strength is the basis of mental work. When the 
body is weak or diseased the mind cannot do its best. Exercise develops 
the muscles, strengthens the body and brightens the mind. All work 
and no play will cause any boy to fail in any undertaking. No machine 
can do the same task every day without wearing out, much less can a 
person keep at the same work day in and day out. Games are not only 
good, but are essential in life. 
Exercise should be pleasant. It is quite necessary for the boy to 
work the garden and clean the yard; for the girl to sweep the house 
and care for the chickens. It is also necessary for the boy to feel that 
the yard is his property and occasionally some of the vegetables should 
be sold that the boy may have' some .money on the side. The girl should 
take a pride in the home so as to keep it neat and clean, but the money 
from the surplus eggs and chickens will create more interest in such 
exercise and recreation. 
While work around the home is exercise, and games are recreation, 
regular exercise at regular times of the day for a certain length of time 
give the best results. The gymnasium with the bar, Indian clubs and 
other appliances are a poor substitute for real sports such as tennis, 
baseball and other out-of-door games. 
Fresh air and sunshine are the important things in exercise. Do one 
thing.at a time. When you study, study hard. When you play, play 
the same way. The best prescription for the appetite is two miles of 
fresh air three times a day. 
THE DIET. 
If you visit a gin or a saw mill you will find the boiler making the 
steam for the engine. The engine furnishing the power for the ma- 
chinery, and the machinery either separating the seed from the lint 
cotton or sawing the logs into lumber. It is wonderful how the fuel 
which is fed the boiler is changed so as to manufacture lint cotton or 
lumber. But the human body is a more wonderful machine. Food is 
taken into the stomach; pure blood is manufactured from it; the brain 
is supplied with nutrition, and the artist paints a beautiful picture; 30 
the poet writes a poem; the orator delivers a wonderful oration, as a 
result of the food taken. 
The boiler has a steam gauge so that the fireman may tell just how 
much fuel and water is needed. And it would be a good thing if some 
boys and girls had a gauge on their stomachs with a hired man to watch 
it, and control the amount of food and water that goes into the stomach, 
but that is the duty of the parents. It is not understood how food is 
changed into thought, nor how a sour stomach causes a sour disposition, 
but it is known that 90 per cent of all stomach and bowel troubles are 
due to carelessness as to diet. If the stomach is treated as a machine 
and fed regularly with good, pure, clean food the entire body is given 
a chance to produce its best results. But when the stomach is filled 
with indigestible, impure or dirty food, then every part of the body 
suffers. 
Water is a most important food. A glass of water should be taken 
before each meal, and at bedtime. But little water at the table or for 
an hour or so after meals is best. Besides indigestion and dyspepsia, 
as commonly called, many diseases such as scurvy, beri beri and pellagra 
are due to a fault in the diet. Each meal should be composed of at 
least four or more articles, and breakfast, dinner and supper should 
differ, as well as the diet for summer, fall, winter and spring. 
Breakfast should be the heaviest meal of the day. When no break- 
fast is wanted, it is due to the fact that the night before too much 
supper was taken and the stomach the following morning has not 
finished the work of the day before. When there is no appetite for 
breakfast, the supper meal should be omitted. More people eat too 
much than too little; they do not eat regularly. The body demands 
more energy in the morning and this energy should be supplied by the 
breakfast. 
Out of 8491 school children in Texas it was found that 38 per cent 
drank coffee, 29 per cent drank tea, and 19 per cent had nothing for 
breakfast except a cup of tea and a slice of bread. A breakfast of 
toast and coffee for a child will result in a nervous wreck. Neither 
coffee nor tea has a place in the child's diet. 
The morning meal should be well balanced-eggs, milk, cereals, bread 
and butter. The noon meal may be varied by the addition of meat, 
soups, green and dried vegetables, and cooked fruits, while supper should 
be composed of milk and cereals or bread and butter. 
Just before dinner, and for an hour after it, no studying should be 
done; and it is often better to open a letter after than before dinner, 
so as not to spoil the appetite. A short walk in the fresh air before 
dining will also be an appetizer. 
Much depends on the way the meals are served. Above all things 31 
food must be pleasant to the eye and to the palate, and it is the great 
art of the cook to fulfill this. The greatest possible cleanliness is 
necessary, for with many people the sight of a dirty cloth or napkin 
is able to kill all appetite and check the secretion of gastric juice. 
For such as have no appetite it may be of advantage to wash the 
tongue before meals with a solution of salt; this, to a certain extent, 
will also cleanse a. coated tongue, with which a good appetite is not 
easily attained; and at the same time it may provoke a secretion of 
stomach juice. Vinegar and water will have the same effect as the 
saline wash. A coated tongue should always be cleansed before meals. 
In the spring the body is disposing of a surplus of heat producing 
elements needed during the cold months. A light diet with vegetables 
and fruit is suited for this season. In the summer months, fruits and 
vegetables should be eaten carefully unless they are well matured and 
cooked. In the fall the fats should be increased in order to prepare 
for tire cold of winter. Pure milk is always a good food and with eggs 
may be taken during any season. 
No better cereal, no more palatable dish has ever been cooked than 
cornmeal mush, when cooked for several hours, until that excellent 
flavor is developed. Much money is wasted in having your cornmeal, 
wheat and oats cooked by the wholesale and served in a pasteboard box 
under a fancy name at three or four times its real value, when the long 
time cooking may be done at home, in your own kitchen. 
No vegetable, uncooked, should be eaten unless peeled. While lettuce 
with dressing has a most excellent taste, it may carry the eggs of the 
tapeworm or hookworm that was in the manure used as a fertilizer. All 
vegetables such as radishes, as well as fruit, should be peeled. Flies 
may place on the fruit the typhoid fever germ or the egg that hatches 
out the micro-organism that causes dysentery. The safest method is to 
cook all food. 
You see no meat on this picture. Children do better without meat 
until they are over ten or twelve years of age. Meat eating is a habit 
that grows until all other foods are excluded, leading to kidney troubles 
and premature old age. Candy, ice cream and pickles are permissible 
only after a full meal of bread, butter, eggs and milk, but should never 
be eaten between meals. 
THE SLEEPING ROOM. 
Eight hours each day should be spent in the sleeping room. This 
room, or rather, porch, should be well ventilated both summer and winter. 
If a room is used, the windows should be lowered from the top and 
raised from the bottom. The air that is thrown off by the lungs is 
warmer usually than the surrounding air and rises; it also contains 32 
poison which has been taken from the blood by the lungs. When the 
window is opened at the top this gas is given a place to pass out of the 
room, while fresh air is admitted, at the bottom of the window. Every 
window should be screened and every bed where mosquitoes or flies exist 
should have a bar over it. No pillow is needed. If you would stand 
erect as a man or woman, do not sleep on a pillow. 
Next to the mattress' should be an oil cloth that may be washed, 
and over this a sheet or dressing of washable goods. This will keep the 
perspiration of the body from being absorbed by the mattress. The bed 
clothing should be at least one-half heavier than the clothing worn in 
the daytime. To go to bed with cold feet will ruin a night's sleep, and 
frequently a day's work. Fresh air in the sleeping room is worth more 
than money in the bank. You should never sleep in the same clothing 
worn during the day. 
Get enough physical exercise during the day to tire you. 
Go to bed as soon as sleepy. 
Be sure the bed is comfortable and the room quiet. 
Think pleasant thoughts. 
Don't have the head of the bed lower than the foot. 
If you haven't bathed, take a bath with soap and water just before 
retiring. 
Eat supper at least two hours before retiring. Eat a light supper 
and take nothing indigestible. 
If you don't get to sleep right away and if you don't sleep quite as 
much as you think you should, remember that even lying awake in bed 
is very restful. 
You should go to bed early enough so as to wake before the sun is up. 
When you wake do not jump out of the bed, but wait until every organ 
of the body wakes up. Turn over several times. Throw the cover upon 
the foot of the bed so that the bed may air during the entire day. Hang 
the clothing that you sleep in out in the sunshine. 
Begin the day right, by taking a bath before breakfast. Wear a shoe 
that fits your foot, and keep your feet dry. Keep your clothes tidy. 
Take care of the eyes and teeth. Keep the hands and finger nails clean. 
Feed the stomach only pure, digestible food, and sleep in the open, and 
life will be a long pleasure trip. 
Every boy and girl should have a First Aid Box to Personal Flygiene. 
It should contain the following: 
A handkerchief. 
A toothbrush. 
A nail file. 
A pocket mirror. 33 
A comb. 
A cake of soap. 
And a towel. 
Who was Hygeia? 
What is hygiene ? 
What is the purpose of personal hygiene? 
Why is a daily bath necessary ? 
What are the essentials of a bath ? 
What are growing pains usually due to? 
What one fact should govern the fit of a shoe? 
Which is better and why, a lace or button shoe? 
How may a person look neat ? 
. What disease of the eye leads to blindness ? 
What does a stye indicate ? 
What care should be taken of the eye? 
Why do teeth decay? And how prevented? 
What is the danger of dirty hands ? 
When is a hand safe? 
What diseases are due to a one-sided diet? 
What diseases may be caused by eating uncooked lettuce or unpeeled 
fruit ? 
What should be the diet at breakfast, dinner and supper? 
How should the diet differ as to seasons? 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 34 
IN 
ACCIDENTS 
KEEP QUIET 
STOP>THINK 
WHAT IS BEST 
TO DO 
CLEANLINESS 
first, 
REMEDIES 
afterward. 35 
ACCIDENTS. 
Many men know enough law to keep out of jail, they know enough 
of the Bible to get to Heaven when they die, but they do not know how 
to tie up a finger when it is cut or to stop the pain when they are 
burned. 
There is no use to learn about the different layers of the skin unless 
you learn at the same time that equal parts of sulphur, Balsam of Peru, 
and vaseline will cure the itch, or how many bones there are in the body 
unless you learn at the same time to care for a broken bone until the 
doctor arrives. Time is wasted in studying the different micro-organ- 
isms unless you learn how to paint a scratch with tincture of iodine, 
and thus prevent blood poisoning. Those conditions and disease that 
require time to develop should come within the care of the doctor, but 
every school child should know what to do in case of accidents, and 
every home should keep certoin remedies at hand. The main thing to 
keep in case of accidents is to kep your head. Stop and think! Do 
not allow yourself to become excited. Pear paralyzes and frequently 
valuable time is lost. 
There are certain principles that underly the treatment of accidents. 
These principles are based on very common sense, yet children study 
the brain and nervous system and never learn that all that is necessary 
to relieve the pain of a burn is to- exclude the air. 
BURNS. 
Whether extensive or very small, the treatment before the doctor 
arrives, in the case of a burn, is the same. If there is linseed oil and 
lime water (which should be kept in every home) place a piece of gauze 
or a clean cloth or a clean handkerchief over the burn and pour on it 
plenty of this mixture. 
If no linseed oil is at hand, moisten common cooking soda and apply 
a thick layer over the burned surface. Then cover with gauze and 
bandage. Never disturb the dressing without the physician orders it 
removed. The doctor may change this treatment when he comes, but 
this remedy was good before the doctor was born, and was satisfactory 
until he came. If this mixture is not on hand, use the membrane 
inside the egg, or varnish, or vaseline, or any substance that is clean 
and will exclude the air. It is the action of the air on that portion of 
the body th'at has lost the skin that causes the pain. If the burn is 36 
•extensive and much skin is lost or the flesh is burned deeply, do not 
depend upon any advice given except that of a physician. The patient 
may die from the shock of the burn, the loss of skin may throw too 
much work on the kidneys, or the flesh may slough off and an artery 
may break, or blood poison may follow,-either condition is a dangerous 
■one, and requires close care. 
FOOT ACCIDENTS. 
Because the foot comes in contact with the dust of the' road or street, 
in any foot accident there is danger of lockjaw. The germ that causes 
lockjaw cannot live in the air. One thing is important, clean the entire 
foot thoroughly with hot water that has been boiled and then wash the 
wound well with another portion of the same water. If there is any 
antiseptic at hand, use it. If not, plenty of hot water is excellent. 
When the wound or cut is clean press the edges together and secure 
them, with a bandage, take a clean cloth saturated with turpentine and 
bind it over the cut. 
Nail punctures must be cleaned in the same manner, except that the 
puncture should be well opened so that the air will be admitted. A 
small strip of clean cloth saturated with turpentine may be packed 
down to the bottom of the puncture. When the doctor comes he may 
change the dressing, but he will surely use the anti-lockjaw or anti- 
tetanic serum. This serum will prevent lockjaw, but will not cure it 
every time. It must be used before the jaws are locked, in order to 
prevent death. When a person has a punctured wound or is shot, unless 
the gun is a long distance from the body, this serum should be used, 
for many cases of lockjaw follow wounds from guns and toy pistols, and 
firecrackers. Anti-tetanic serum is harmless, and any child that dies 
from lockjaw could have been saved had it not been for the carelessness 
or ignorance of the parents or the physicians. When an artery is cut 
in a foot accident, it should be treated as in any other case. 
cuts and hemorrhages. 
If a cut is clean and the edges are smooth, and the knife is clean and 
sharp, press the edges of the wound together and bind it up with a 
clean cloth or bandage. But if there is any doubt as to the cleanliness 
of the cut, wash it well with boiled water, then bind it together and 
pour over the bandage some turpentine. Sugar has been used as a 
dressing, but should not be placed in the cut. Always place the edges 
together, and put the medicine on the outside of the bandage. Be sure 
that the bandage is clean. 
When a cut bleeds freely, you can tell whether it is an artery or a 37 
vein, sometimes by the color of the blood, but always by the manner 
of bleeding. Arteries spurt, veins ooze. When a vein is cut, simply 
pinch the place with the finger and thumb for a few minutes. If this 
does not stop it, a. ligature or cord may be used as in case of an artery. 
Pressure will usually stop a vein. Because of the pressure of the heart 
in the blood current, an artery is not so easily checked. Take the 
finger and thumb and pinch the bleeding point. A thread may be tied 
around the finger and thumb with one knot and slipped over the ends 
of the finger and thumb and tied around the loose tissue. Where the 
bleeding point cannot be pinched, fold a clean handkerchief into a 
small wad, press this down on the artery and hold it with the hand or 
bind it down with a bandage or another handkerchief. If the arm or 
hand is cut, and you cannot stop the blood by pressure, tie a handker- 
chief or cloth around the arm above the elbow, slip a stick under the 
handkerchief and twist the stick until all the blood is cut off from that 
arm and band. If on the leg, tie above the knee in the same manner. 
If on the body or head, the folded handkerchief and tight bandage must 
be used. Never put cobwebs, ashes, soot or any medicine in a wound 
to stop the blood. There is no drug or chemical that will stop a bleed- 
ing artery. Pressure by finger and thumb or wadded cloth or cording 
are the only means that should be used. When an artery is cut, time is 
valuable. You must know what to do and how to do it, or a life may 
be lost. 
Wash all surface wounds with alcohol, using the cotton as a sponge. 
When there is little bleeding, dust on boric acid. When it bleeds make 
a mop with a small stick and the cotton and swab the iodine on freely;, 
then cut a section of the gauze so as to cover well the wound and bind 
it on with the bandage. 
In deep wounds, when the hemorrhage has been checked, wash the 
wound with the bichloride tablets dissolved in the correct proportion of 
water so as to form a solution of 1 to 1000 parts of water, as directed 
on the bottle. When the wound has been washed thoroughly, and all 
dirt taken out of it, paint the surrounding skin with iodine, then cut 
a section of gauze and bind it on with the bandage. In accidents to the 
eye, or around the eye, use nothing but the boric acid solution to wash 
with, and moisten the gauze in the same solution, then bind the eye, if 
necessary. Upon absolute cleanliness depends success. Use nothing 
next to the wound that is not included in this list. 
BITES AND STINGS. 
At certain times of the year, and under certain conditions, snake 
bites are not poisonous, but it is safer to treat them all alike. By far. 38 
the rattlesnake is the most dangerous. He is usually kind enough to 
give a warning, but this does not relieve his fang of the venom. In a 
country where the rattlesnakes live every person should carry a small 
bottle of permanganate of potash and a sharp knife. The treatment is 
as good for the mule, horse, cow or dog as it is for a person. As soon 
as the bite occurs, cord the arm or leg just as you were told to do for an 
artery that was cut. Then take your knife and make two or three cuts 
crossing each other. Do not be afraid of the blood running too freely, 
for if your cord is tight enough to keep the poison from going into the 
system it will also keep the blood from coming into the arm or leg. 
If the bite occurs on the body, make the incision on the body just the 
same. The poison is usually near the surface, and a long incision 
through the skin is better than a deep cut.' It is the blood that you must 
get out, so do not stop until you get it. As soon as the cord is placed 
and the incision is made and the bleeding is free, then dissolve per- 
manganate of potash in water and apply it freely. If you have no water, 
apply the crystals, and the serum of the blood will dissolve them. It is 
thought by some that the crystals are better than the solution; one is 
as efficient as the other. When the permanganate has been used then 
start with the person to a physician. 
When any. insect or animal, except the snake or the mad dog, bites 
a person, the poison is of alkali nature; that is, it is similar to soda, 
and if you apply an acid such as vinegar you will afford the person 
some relief. The poison in the stings of an insect is acid, and so for 
a wasp or bee sting you apply soda or ammonia just as you were taught 
to do in case of a burn. Some species of spiders are very poisonous and 
their bites should be treated as snake bites. Certain vegetables have a 
peculiar way of protecting themselves by stinging a person who gets too 
close to them. The whole family of nettles have this bad habit. Their 
sting may be relieved with soda. The poison ivy inflicts a more lasting 
punishment for such intrusion. Tincture of iodine and laudanum in 
equal parts will relieve this condition, but the remedy must be pre- 
scribed by a physician. 
THE RABID DOG. 
It is not safe to discuss the question as to whether a dog that has 
bitten a person is mad or not. The symptoms of hydrophobia are of 
little importance, and when any dog has bitten a human being the 
dog's head should be sent to the Pasteur Institute at Austin, Texas. 
One human life is worth more than all the dogs, puppies included. The 
symptoms of hydrophobia are confusing and the disease is slow in de- 
veloping; in fact, some animals are carriers of the disease and there is 
no positive way of making a diagnosis except by the examination of the 39 
brain with a microscope and that in the hands of an expert. A dog 
that has bitten a person should be killed by shooting him through the 
body so as not to injure the head. Place the head in a bucket with a 
tight cover. Place this bucket inside of a. larger bucket and pack ice and 
salt around the inner bucket, and send it at once to the Pasteur Insti- 
tute with the name of the sender on the larger bucket. 
The head of the mad dog carries the saliva and great care should be 
used in handling the head, for if there are scratches on the hands they 
may become infected from the saliva. When such scratches are infected 
it is best to burn them with a red hot iron or pure carbolic acid. No 
time should be lost in sending the head to the Pasteur Institute at the 
Insane Asylum at Austin. 
As soon as possible after the bite has occurred take a red hot iron 
or cotton swab dipped in carbolic acid and cauterize the wound. This 
treatment is severe and if the patient goes with the head to the institute, 
such severe means are not necessary. Until in recent years all patients 
died who were bitten by rabid dogs; under the present treatment less 
than one out of 250 people die. 
BROKEN BONES. 
There is one principle underlying the treatment of a broken bone. 
That is rest. It matters not where the bone is broken, nor the shape 
of the bone, nor how it is broken, the only thing to be done is to fix 
the bone so that it cannot move. When a bone is broken, if the broken 
ends are allowed to move, the flesh around the break is torn and mashed, 
an artery may be cut, or a nerve may be injured. Always stop and 
think how the bone may be fixed. If there is a board, a shingle, a piece 
of tin, leather, or cardboard, use it as a splint board. Bend it or cut it 
so as to fit the surface over the broken bone, let it extend beyond the 
joint at either end of the broken bone. Then bind it with cloths, as 
evenly placed as possible, sufficiently tight to hold the bone still. If a 
finger is broken, or a bone in the hand, place the hand on a splint from 
the wrist to the ends of the fingers. One finger will make a good splint 
for the other-tie all the fingers together if you have no splints. If the 
wrist is injured, lay the injured wrist in the palm of the other hand, 
bring the thumb of the well hand on one side of the injured wrist with 
the second, third and fourth fingers on the other side. Let the first 
finger be extended under the palm of the injured hand between the 
second and third fingers of the injured hand, then tie with cloth or 
handkerchief the hands together in this condition. Be sure and prac- 
tice this position before an accident occurs so as to understand the 
position. If a break occurs in a bone in the arm, place the arm against 40 
the body, the hand upon the breast with the ends of the fingers in the 
hollow above the bone on the other side and bind the whole arm tight 
to the body. A broken bone in the leg is more difficult to splint-it is 
better to place the legs close together and bind them in that position. 
This same treatment is good in an injury to the foot and ankle if there 
is a way at hand of moving the patient. Fractures of bones of the pelvis 
are indeed serious and a patient so injured should be left in the position 
he has fallen, except that he should be made comfortable. Always 
build a shade over the patient. Never give him any stimulants; it is 
better to give an opiate so that he may keep quiet and sleep. A frac- 
tured rib is treated by carrying a cloth around the entire chest and 
pinning it tightly so that the ribs do not move in breathing. Loosen 
all clothing around and below the waist so that the breathing may 
be easy. 
In all head injuries it requires a physician to tell whether there is a 
fracture of the skull or not. Place the patient in a comfortable posi- 
tion; if there is any hemorrhage, stop it. Keep the patient cool in 
warm weather or warm in cold weather. Give the patient plenty of 
fresh air, but under no conditions give whisky, coffee or any stimulant 
whatever. 
In injuries to the back place the patient on a plank as long as the 
body, and bind the entire body to this plank, or, if no plank is to be 
found, do not move the patient. 
In sprains and dislocations of joints, slight pulling may. reduce the 
dislocation, but is very harmful in sprains. If' it is known that a 
joint is dislocated, pulling may be tried, but should not be continued. 
In all accidents to bones and joints first send for a physician; second, 
fix the-bone so that it cannot move; third, make the person comfortable; 
fourth, never give any stimulants, but if pain is severe, or patient is 
very nervous, give paregoric or something to quiet. 
FAINTS. 
When a person falls unconscious, whether a bone is broken or not, 
the patient should have plenty of fresh air. Do not crowd around such 
a patient. Stand back; let one person do the work; let a second person 
fan the patient, and a third go for the doctor. Three people are all 
that is needed, keep the others back. The rest of the crowd should go 
back to their work or play. Loosen the collar and the clothing on the 
chest and waist. Straighten the patient out on the ground or floor so 
that the head will be lower if possible than the body. If cold water is 
at hand, bathe the face with cold water. After the patient has regained 41 
consciousness give him. a dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia, and then 
if necessary go ahead to care for any accident that may have occurred. 
DROWNING. 
If everyone would learn how to swim well before they went into the 
water there would be fewer people drowned, or, if everyone that goes 
into the water would remember to throw their heads back and would 
not get excited, fewer people would have to be saved. 
It is difficult for a person to sink who will turn upon his back and 
throw his head deep into the water, so as to elevate the chest, and allow 
the body to float. It requires very little effort to remain on top of the 
water, and is a very difficult matter for a live body with lungs full of 
air to go any depth and remain there. 
If you wish to save a drowning person tear off your coat, pull your 
shirt and undershirt out of your pants, remove your shoes and loosen 
the garters around your legs so that the water inside your clothing will 
not form a bag and weigh down your own body. Do not allow 'yourself to 
become excited; if you cannot swim well or cannot control yourself, run 
•for help, but do not go into the water else there will be two to save 
instead of one. 
In approaching a drowning person be careful to approach them from 
the back. If a woman, take hold of the hair, or, if the hair is short, 
take hold of the clothing. Do not take hold of them from the front 
nor let them get hold of your clothing or arms. Talk to them in a loud 
voice, tell them to throw their heads back, not to splash the water, but 
to paddle gently. Assure them that you can save them. If necessary 
to keep them from hanging on you and drowning you, push them under 
and catch them by the clothing in the back as they come up. Hold 
them at arm's length. 
When you have gotten hold of the hair or the back of the neck, or 
collar, throw yourself on your back under the person so that your breast 
and stomach will be to his back. Never let the drowning person get 
hold of you. Never attempt to take him to the shore until you have 
gotten control so that both will float without much exercise on your part. 
It is better to float in such position than to attempt to swim against 
a current. 
When brought to the shore, lay them face down, with the body much 
higher than the head so that the water in the lungs may run out of the 
mouth. If they are unconscious, clasp them as in the second picture; 
lift the body upright so as to assist nature in unloading the water that 
has been swallowed or taken into the lungs. The next step is to per- 42 
form artificial respiration. This is done by three distinct motions, or 
positions, and should be done slowly. 
Kneel down over the patient's head. Place the hands across the chest, 
arms next to the body. Press the arms into the body so as to compress 
the chest. Then lift the arms upward and above, stretching them at 
full length so as to lift the chest. Then place the arms in the first 
position. This process should be repeated sixteen or twenty times a 
minute, done very slowly. It has been suggested that the lungs may 
be filled with air by placing your mouth over the patient's mouth, hold- 
ing his nose and blowing all the air that you can into his. lungs. It is 
claimed that the warm air stimulates the lungs to action. This method 
is unsanitary, and your breath expired will not support life, but if no 
other method is thought of it may be tried. The method shown in the 
last picture is done in this way. After the water has been emptied 
from the lungs, place the patient face down, with arms in position 
shown. Kneel down, place your hands on the sides of the patient as 
shown in the picture and press in the sides, pushing forward, thus 
imitating the natural respiration. Either method is better than no 
method at all. Learn one method well, practice it on a person who 
is not drowned, and when the accident happens you will be able to save 
a human life, an honor that few persons can claim. 
When a person has come in contact with an electric wire and has 
stopped breathing the same methods may be used. 
'THE FIRST AID BOX FOR SCHOOL. 
Remember that all drugs are poisons unless properly used. 
Alcohol, 6 ounces. 
Boric acid, 2 ounces. 
Saturated solution of boracic acid, 8 ounces. 
Tincture iodine, 2 ounces (glass stopper). 
Turpentine, 8 ounces. 
Bichloride of mercury, 25 tablets (7|-gr.). 
Linseed oil and lime water, 1 quart. 
Permanganate of potash, | ounce. 
One pair of 3|-inch scissors. 
Sterile gauze, 1 package. 
One paper of safety pins. 
Freshly laundered towels. 
One white enameled wash basin. 
Ten yards bandages, 1-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch. 
Absorbent cotton, 1 pound. 
Carbolated vaseline, 1 ounce. 43 
Aromatic spirits of ammonia, 2 ounces. 
Common cooking soda, 1 package. 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 
What is the first thing in all accidents ? 
What causes the pain in a burn? 
How may the pain be stopped? 
What remedies are to be used, and how? 
What fatal disease frequently follows a foot accident, and why? 
How may tetanus or lockjaw be prevented? 
What medicine or drug will stop a bleeding artery? 
What disease may follow a cut not properly taken care of? 
How may blood poisoning be prevented? 
What is the treatment for a snake bite? For a wasp or ant sting? 
Where should the head of a mad dog be sent? And how should it 
be prepared? 
What is the treatment for hydrophobia ? 
What is the first principle in caring for a broken bone? 
Explain the first thing io be done when a finger or a rib is broken ? 
In accidents to the body, what should and what should not be done? 
Explain fully the method of reviving a drowned person. 
Give an illustration on another pupil of this process. 44 
OUR UNINVITED GUESTS 
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<2^ a-tt 6^/ asK /ia^^/ '{La /rite.. 
/& a, sAim o/t your fo/7?e a/zd & £0 you. 45 
OUR UNINVITED GUESTS. 
It is very likely that there was a party recently at which you were 
to entertain your friends. Games were provided and refreshments were 
served, and you did your very best to see that they enjoyed the party. 
You selected just those that were friendly and agreeable with each 
other. You placed their names on a piece of paper and wrote each 
one an invitation. They were your invited guests, but there were some 
very rude boys in the neighborhood that you did not invite. Their 
names were not on the list. They came and for a while they stood at 
the gate, but the gate was open and they came in and at last they were 
mingling with your friends. They were the Uninvited Guests. They 
were not wanted, but the gate was left open and they came in. 
Many homes entertain uninvited guests. Frequently they are not 
wanted; frequently they are disliked, but they have gained admission, 
as the door was left open, and in some cases they are allowed to remain 
until they are no longer guests, but become a part of the home. They 
are no longer disliked, for, by continued association the family has 
accustomed itself to them, and their presence is overlooked. 
Among the uninvited guests most frequently found in the home are the 
fly, the flea, the bedbug, the mosquito and the louse. The fly and the 
mosquito come in with other guests because the screen is left open. 
Frequently the flea comes along in company with Pussy or Rover. The 
dog and the cat picked them up in their clothing at the barn or hog lot, 
and while they did their best to scratch them off, they failed. The fly 
came from the manure pile, and while the manure pile was its home, 
the odor of cake in the kitchen smelled good to him and he waited on 
the screen door in company with the mosquito until the screen was left 
open. The mosquito left the pool of water or the damp ground covered 
with weeds looking for food, but the horses' and the hogs' hide was so 
much thicker than the baby's skin, that he waited with the fly to get to 
the baby. The bedbug was hatched in the lumber, but could not find 
any food, so he quietly waited in a small crack in the bedstead until 
night. After the negro washerwoman had gone to bed he ate breakfast, 
dinner and supper at one meal, crawled into the freshly laundered 
clothes on the foot of the bed, and came to the new home the next day 
with the washing. The louse found that the yard of his house had 
changed color, when the hat was swapped by the two boys and as the 
new yard was clean and nice, he bedded himself in the hair and went 46 
home with a new host that day. And, so in this way, or some other, 
they became the uninvited guest in the new home. 
LOUSE. 
Of all the uninvited guests that come to the house, the louse is the 
most respectable, unless it is the bedbug. Some live on the lower ani- 
mals, but the better class are usually entertained by man. The louse 
itself is not so nasty, but he has lost his reputation because of the 
company he keeps, as he does not associate with the better class of 
people. Among those who are filthy, he finds his friends, among the 
ignorant, who are careless, he lives in contentment. If raised in a 
decent family a louse would not be so bad, for there are several 
kinds of lice. One kind lives in the hair of the head, another is 
usually found on the back or in the underclothing, while another 
kind lives in the hair on the body. He prefers human blood as 
a food, and if the host is well and in good health, so is the louse. 
But, when the human being is sick the louse may carry the poison. 
Typhus fever, a disease prevalent in Mexico and certain foreign coun- 
tries, is carried from one man to the other by the louse. Typhus fever 
was once called "ship fever" because it w'as prevalent among sailors, 
due to the fact that sailors are usually filthy and lousy. Sailors live 
in close quarters and do their own laundry work when it has to be 
done. Under modern conditions, with ship sanitation as it is practiced 
in this day and time, typhus fever as a ship fever is disappearing, be- 
cause the sailor is not so filthy and lousy as before. It may be possible 
that the louse carries other diseases and may cause skin eruptions and 
boils, but this is speculation. Where lice are allowed to live in the hair 
sores form on the scalp, with pus and matter, the hair falls out and 
the glands in the neck enlarge, break down and form abscesses. These 
enlarged glands are sometimes called scrofula by careless physicians. 
It is best when there is a lump or enlarged gland on the neck to look 
carefully into the hair for lice. The egg, or nit, of the louse may be 
left on the comb or brush at the hotel or boarding house, and by using 
either, the egg is given a new head on which to hatch. Or, if a person 
rests the head against the back of the chair that has been used by a 
lousy person, the louse may be carried to your home in that way. In 
fact, if you associate with or visit those that are lousy it is a. difficult 
matter to avoid becoming a host to this uninvited guest. 
Now, after you have him, how can you get rid of him? If he is 
a body louse, take all your clothes and your bed clothes and boil them; 
at the same time examine your body and see that none are hiding in 47 
the creases of the skin. A prolonged bath with plenty of soap repeated 
several times will get rid of them. 
If he belongs to the kind of lice that live in the hair, moisten a cloth 
with kerosene and rub into the hair and underlying skin. If the odor 
of kerosene is objectionable, add one teaspoonful of oil of sassafras to 
three teaspoonfuls of kerosene, and use as directed above. The kerosene 
will not hurt the hair or the skin. Repeat several times so as to get rid 
of the eggs or nits. 
BEDBUGS. 
In the days of Rome, Pliny named the bedbug "Cimex," and since 
then scientists call him by that name. Many stories sounding like fairy 
tales are told of the bedbug. 
In Mexico the bedbug is said to have wings and flies like a beetle. 
He has been kept for twenty years in a bottle without food except water 
that was fed him through a pin hole in the cork. 
The Romans used the bedbug as medicine. Seven bedbugs with a 
little water was a dose for an adult, and was given for snake bites, while 
three or four were sufficient for a child. Indeed, this must have been 
a dose. 
In America the bedbug has been used for chills and fevers. In cases 
of hysteria the bedbug was mashed up and inhaled. It was said to be 
a sure cure. 
The bedbug lays 250 eggs each season, and is really not a bug at allr 
but a wood tick. He lives, naturally, in the wood, eats anything that 
he can chew, but prefers human blood or chicken blood. In case neither 
are obtainable, he will visit the horse. The odor of the bedbug is 
peculiarly disagreeable, though the bug's habits are not bad. He, like 
the louse, has lost his reputation because of his associates, for he does 
not associate with people who are clean, but with the filthy and usuallv 
the ignorant. He does not produce disease, but when he has feasted 
upon a person that has scarlet fever or typhoid fever, he carries the 
poison with him and gives it to the next host. He can do the same 
thing with smallpox, bubonic plague, leprosy, and possibly infantile 
paralysis, pneumonia, and syphilis. There is little doubt but that manv 
skin diseases are due to a visit of- the bedbug. The bedbug as well 
as the louse may cause boils and pimples. 
The bedbug is so easily gotten rid of that decent people no longer 
allow him to live in their homes. It is never safe to stop at a hotel 
or boarding house where bedbugs are found, for if the keeper of such 
a place is so careless, it is very likely that every room in the house is 
infested with vermin, and that the food on the table is filthy. A person 
in such a place is liable to contract some disease in the sleeping room 48 
or be poisoned at the table. The same may be said of the home. Never 
stop in the home where bedbugs are found; while it is not quite so 
dangerous, yet a visitor is not safe in such a home, for decent, clean 
peopie do not allow bedbugs in their houses. 
To rid a house of bedbugs sprinkle the floor well with water, then 
burn sulphur, one pound to every 1000 cubic feet, in the room. This 
will kill them if there are no cracks to let the fumes of the sulphur out, 
but do not stop up the crack with paper, as you will keep the fumes 
away from the bug, for the bug lives in the cracks. After the sulphur 
is burned, keep the room closed for twelve or fifteen hours. It is better 
to paint the room, and apply with a brush to all the cracks before paint- 
ing, this mixture: 
Corrosive sublimate, 2 ounces. 
Denatured alcohol, 2 ounces. 
Oil cedar, 2 ounces. 
Turpentine, 1 pint. 
Shake it well until dissolved, and remember, this will not only kill 
bedbugs, but any and everything else. It is a "deadly poison." 
The bed and furniture may be treated with the same application. 
The bedding should be boiled. 
The cockroach is the natural enemy of the bedbug, and enjoys a feast 
of such. But if the home is well kept there will be no cockroaches to 
catch the bedbugs. 
THE FLEA. 
The louse and the bedbug are very nice compared with the flea, who 
lives anywhere. In the barn or hog pen, where the dust and smell of 
the animals are strongest, you will find him most plentiful. The flea 
prefers a dirty dog or cat to a clean one, at least, they are more plentiful 
on dirty animals, and on dirty people. Only one thing may be said for 
the flea, if you look closely you will always find his clothes buttoned. 
His six legs are horny, and even before he bites he may be felt crawling 
over the skin. He is not choice as to his diet, but will stop on any 
animal, picks the dirtiest portions of the body, and establishes a home 
and raises a family. At the least commotion or disturbance he jumps, 
not seeming to care where. He may be found under the rugs or mat- 
ting, in the dark places and under the house. There are more than 100 
kinds of fleas, but it is of no concern as to whether they live on one 
animal or the other, or what their names may be. The flea is a para- 
site, and in order to raise a family must feed on blood, whether from 
the human body or other source. If the flea lives on blood drawn from 
the human body he may transmit the diseases that are due to living germs 
ju the blood. 49 
Without food a flea may live in a dry place a week, but if furnished 
water he can live without food two weeks. He does not like sunlight, 
but prefers to live under the house, or in shade. He can jump flat- 
footed 12 inches long jump or inches high jump. If you will 
measure his body you will find that he jumps from 150 to 500 times 
his length and about 250 times his height. Like some people, when he 
gets old and fat he gets lazy and does not jump well. 
In First Samuel, V and VI, will be found a description of a disease 
that killed many mice in the field and many men in the camp. One 
hundred and forty-six years before Columbus discovered America a dis- 
ease called "black death" spread over the world and killed 25,000,000 
people. Towns and villages were left em^ty. 
In 1910, this same disease, which is now called the bubonic plague, 
slipped by the United States quarantine officers, and before it was recog- 
nized was well scattered in San Francisco, Cal. In this epidemic less 
than 100 human beings were reported to have lost their lives, but the 
money spent in preventing its spread amounted to more than $1,500,000. 
In 1914, the same disease was admitted at New Orleans. This epi- 
demic resulted in less than fifty deaths, but cost over $3,000,000 to 
prevent its spread. While careful and thorough quarantine will not 
allow such diseases to enter, it is remarkable that in the two outbreaks 
so few deaths occurred. No cure has ever been discovered for the plague. 
The death rate is very high, with very few recoveries. The plague 
begins suddenly, with high fever, severe vomiting, often bloody, intense 
pain, intense headache and backache, with enlarged glands or kernels 
at the elbow, knee and under the arm, in the groin or the neck. These 
glands are intensely painful. If patient lives any length of time these 
glands form large abscesses and turn out an abundance of pus or matter. 
There is sleeplessness, nervousness, delirium and epileptiform fits, fol- 
lowed by death in from two to four days. There is a bright, glaring 
expression in the eye, which is blood shot. The nostrils are dilated and 
the face is haggard and drawn from, the intense pain, and while there is 
no remedy known, the cause of the disease is well understood. 
Plague is a disease of rats, and is carried to man by the fleas that live 
on the rat. These fleas leave the rat as soon as it dies from the plague, 
and when they bite man he contracts the disease. 
In order to prevent the spread of the disease the United States Quar- 
antine Service has spent enormous sums of money to kill rats and fleas, 
and to rebuild houses so that they would be rat proof. Since the Pan- 
ama Canal has been completed sea traffic in the Texas ports has in- 
creased and ships from all nations stop at our harbors. All ships are 
infected with rats and Texas will always be in danger of epidemics of 50 
the plague. When the plague shall have been brought to Texas it is 
then too late to kill rats and fleas. 
In order to rid the house of fleas their host must be found. If it is 
the dog or cat that brings them into the house, keep the dog or cat out, 
or wash the dog or cat and keep the fleas off of them. If kerosene is 
used for fleas as for lice, it is just as effective. If fleas infect the stable, 
sprinkle lime over the ground after all manure and trash have been 
raked up and burned. In the pig pen set a post, bore holes into the 
post slanting so that they will hold kerosene, and tie around this post 
a sack, and the pigs and hogs will rub the fleas off. One or two sheep 
in a lot will kill all the fleas by gathering them in their wool, which 
contains oil sufficient to kill them. 
If the home is infested with rats or mice it is of little benefit to fight 
fleas. Make the foundation of the house rat and mouse proof by using 
concrete or fine wire gauze. Stop all the holes and keep the rats from 
under the house. When you have gotten rid of the animals that harbor 
fleas sprinkle lime under the house, and scour the house with a liberal 
supply of lye and water. 
THE MOSQUITO. 
In the last ten years so much study has been devoted to the mosquito' 
that every child knows the difference between the one kind that pro- 
duces malaria, and the other kind that carries yellow fever, and the 
third that carries dengue. Other diseases are also carried by the mos- 
quito. There are 1000 different species of mosquitoes, and for children,, 
this study is useless. If the mosquitoes did not carry disease, the worry 
due to the peculiar songs they sing, the pain of the bite and the sting 
and the loss of sleep at night due to their presence is sufficient reason 
to interest anyone in their destruction. 
It matters not whether their bodies are spotted or striped, whether 
they are brown or black, they are to be classed with the other parasites, 
the louse, the bedbug and the flea and fly, and if it is a disgrace to 
have one in the home, it is as disgraceful to have the other. 
There are many sizes and kinds of mosquitoes. They are found in 
nearly every location from the Equator to the Arctic Circle, and in 
every altitude from the sea level to the mountain top. 
Tn Alaska, where the weather is extremely cold, there is to be found 
great droves of mosquitoes. The mosquito should be able to jump, if 
the length of his legs are to be considered. But he does not jump, he 
flies. He is a bird, in fact. He has a long bill or beak, and when 
hungry he pushes his bill into the skin and sucks the blood. Man 
should be thankful that the woodpecker, who works in the same way,, 
does not depend on man for his food. 51 
Mosquitoes breed in ponds of water, cisterns, tanks, pools, old barrels, 
cans and bottles or in damp places. The mosquito lays from 40 to 400 
eggs on the edge of the water. They form in rafts and float for a day 
or two, then hatch out as wiggle tails. In ten or twelve days the wiggle 
tail has changed his form, sprouts legs and wings, finds himself on top 
of the water, or at the edge, a full grown mosquito. After he has 
stretched himself a few times he starts off for food. The male mos- 
quito wears a plume. The female mosquito does the singing and biting. 
The bite may produce a pimple, but if the persons they bite are per- 
fectly healthy it cannot produce a disease. 
The mosquito carries a small quantity of blood from one person who 
is sick to one who is well, and the well person is given the disease. 
Chills and fevers, or malaria, is carried in this manner. Malaria is 
due to a small organism. When this organism is carried by the mos- 
quito to a well person, even though in small quantities, it remains in 
the blood cells and grows until a sufficient quantity is produced and a 
chill and fever result. These organisms destroy the red blood cells. 
They live in the cells. When the eggs of the organism are hatched, 
the blood cell is torn open and the little organism hunts new cells. As 
the red cells give the color to the blood and also to the body, malaria 
takes the color from the face and people are said to be pale and blood- 
less. The value of the blood is lowered in this manner and any person 
affected with chronic malaria has little energy or life. They have little 
power to resist disease. When winter comes bad colds, pneumonia, 
bronchitis, and consumption find them easy victims. 
In the summer, cholera morbus, diarrhea and dysentery or flux take 
hold of them, and they cannot resist the disease. Malaria does not kill 
many people, but it saps the body of vitality so that many of those with 
chronic malaria die from other diseases. If you draw a line from Wil- 
barger county through Texas to Webb county, you will have what may 
be called the malarial district. The people in this district each year 
loQe $1,763,870 in paying the druggists' and doctors' bills and in buying 
coffins for those who die from malaria. This amount does not include 
anything for the time lost from work while sick, nor the value of human 
lives. If this amount was spent in killing mosquitoes and properly 
treating those who have malaria, the disease could be stamped out in a 
few years. 
No one but a physician should give medicine for malaria. In coun- 
tries where chills and fevers are common, it is a great mistake to lake 
quinine every day. 
If you have had the smallpox once you may not have it the second time. 
The same may be said of many diseases. But in malaria the opposite 
is true. One attack of malaria renders a person more liable to another 52 
attack, for the red blood cells have been destroyed, and the whole body 
suffers as a result, and the vitality is lowered. If a patient does not 
take anti-malarial remedies, until the body is cleared of the organism, 
and until the system is built up to as high a plane of vitality as it was 
before the attack of the chills and fevers, subsequent attacks are very 
likely to occur. 
When a person has chronic malaria the blood is affected. The spleen 
and the liver may be enlarged. Quinine will destroy the organisms, that 
the mosquito has given a person, but does not build up the general sys- 
tem or increase the value of the blood so that the body may resist another 
attack of malaria, or any other disease. Every person with malaria 
should consult a physician, who will give them a treatment for more 
than thirty-five days, and during this time cure the malaria, build up 
the general system and regulate the functions of the organs of the body. 
There is little use to take medicine for malaria if you continue to 
live with mosquitoes. A mosquito is not as filthy as a flea, and is more 
particular as to his diet than a bedbug or a louse, but he is by far the 
more common and more dangerous to man. It is an easy matter to rid 
the home of mosquitoes and malaria. Mosquitoes do not fly far, the 
wind, when high, may blow them quite a distance. When the mosquito 
is in the wiggle tail stage he has a small beak or tube through which 
he breathes. If watched for a while he will be seen to dart up near 
the surface, and after a kick or two, float to the top of the water so 
that this beak may take in some fresh air. If the water is covered with 
oil, when the wiggle tail comes to the surface, the dose of oil or the 
exclusion of air kills him. The mosquito hunts a place where he may 
hide from the wind. He is easily smoked out of such places and may 
be forced into the wind and be blown away. 
If you wish to get rid of mosquitoes first find where they are breeding. 
Pour kerosene oil on the pools, or cisterns, or barrels. Then, if pos- 
sible, drain such places so that the sunshine may dry them. Every 
can or barrel, bottle or box should be turned over. Mosquitoes will 
breed in water that catches in the hollow of a tree, or even in the 
water that accumulates in an old horn that is turned so as to hold it. 
Different kinds of mosquitoes breed in different kinds of water. Some 
prefer clean, clear water, some prefer dirty water, and everything that 
will hold water should be oiled and then drained so that the water 
will not stagnate, or, as in the case of wells and cisterns, a close fitting 
cover should be put over the top. Unless the cistern is oiled before it 
is covered, when the crop of eggs hatch a new lot of mosquitoes will be 
turned loose. The wire gauze should be fine in mesh. There should 
be at least twenty meshes to the inch. To tell how many meshes to the 
inch simply lay a rule down on the screen and count them. If all the 53 
barrels or cisterns are screened so that the mosquito cannot get to the 
water, it is not necessary to use oil. Gold fish and silver fish and certain 
minnows will destroy the wiggle tail and in this way prevent mosquitoes. 
Bats catch mosquitoes and feed upon them. But the best method is to 
screen or oil and drain breeding places. As the oil evaporates, it must 
be used every two weeks. Keep the window and door screens closed all 
the time. If not possible to screen the house, sleep under a bar. By 
sprinkling equal parts of oil of citronella, spirits of camphor and oil of 
cedar over the pillow you can run him away from the bed. 
One very important thing in the prevention of malaria is to screen 
the person that has the disease, for if all persons with malaria were 
screened and no mosquitoes could bite them then the mosquito could 
not carry the disease, and people would not have it. 
THE FLY. 
Everyone has heard the song, "Baby bye, here's a fly, let us watch him, 
you and I; there he goes, on his toes, tickling baby's nose." 
This poetry was written before the microscope had shown what the 
fly 'carried on his toes, and what he left on the baby's nose. All the 
parasites that live on man's blood are very decent and nice, excepting 
the flea, when compared with the fly. The louse hatched out in the 
human hair, the bedbug hatched in a crevice of the bedstead, and the 
mosquito in the cistern or barrel are clean and nice when compared with 
the fly. The flea, as soon as the body of his host is dead, leaves it for 
a live host. He will not stay on the dead body. When the stench of 
the dead body begins, the flea, the bedbug, the louse and mosquito 
cannot stand such conditions, and they move. But the fly, the filthiest 
and nastiest of all animals, except the buzzard, comes with much pleasure, 
attracted by such stench. Some of the larger animals will eat dead 
bodies, but the fly is the only human pet that prefers such food. 
The fly will lay its eggs in decaying vegetable or animal matter, but 
prefers horse manure and privy deposits. She lays four batches of 120 
eggs, hatching 480 flies in ten days. In the long summers of the South 
it is no exaggeration to say that during the fly season there may be 
10,000,000 flies resulting from the one that has survived the winter. 
Many experiments have been made with the fly. The feet have been 
examined and 6,600,000 bacteria have been found on them. These bac- 
teria or germs may belong to a class that produce disease. The fly's 
habits are such that when a scratch or a cut occurs, the fly is persistent 
in lighting on the scratch and crawling over it, and at the same time 
dropping off these bacteria. In this way any wound may be infected 
and blood poison. begin. 54 
If you examine carefully the fly specks you will find two classes. One 
is a light brown, the other a dark hrown. When the fly overloads its 
stomach the food is vomited and a light brown speck is left. When the 
bowels move a dark speck is the result. 
The diet of the fly varies. He feasts on any kind of food from the 
barn to the slop bucket or the dining table. He flies well, but does not 
go far, if the food is near, nor does he hesitate to fill his stomach, even 
on the discharge from a sore on the horse's back or the trough in the 
pig pen. 
For filthy habits, for disgusting diet, the fly is, of all animals, the 
prize winner. But his close relation to the human kitchen and dining 
room make him of unusual interest when we consider that he comes 
fresh from the privy, in through the kitchen door and crawls over the 
bread that we are to eat, or when we think that fresh frem the pig 
trough he crawls over the meat on the dining table, or after he has 
overloaded his stomach at the running sore on the cow's back, he 
vomits this stuff on the fruit we have in our hands. The fly has no 
teeth. He spits the saliva on the cake to soften it, then sucks it up 
through his proboscis. If he carried no bacteria or disease, such repul- 
sive habits are sufficient to make anyone detest the fly. 
But he carries disease germs. He visits the privy, loads his feet and 
stomach with human excreta; flies into the bedroom and lights on the 
baby's lips and crawls into its mouth and produces infantile diarrhea. 
Each year in Texas more than 2834 babies die from this disease. The 
fly visits the sick patient across the way, crawls into the spittle, loads his 
feet and visits the baby's nose and produces la grippe, pneumonia and 
such diseases. 
Nor is this all. The fly slips into the unscreened sick room and into 
the uncovered slop bucket, loads his feet and stomach, flies into the 
dining room and specks the edge of your glass, and drops into the milk 
that you are drinking, the typhoid germs. In fact, he has been called 
the typhoid fly. But this is a mistake, for he carries cholera, dysentery, 
erysipelas, anthrax, glanders, smallpox and many skin diseases. 
The fly is an insect of filth. No home is clean and safe as long as 
there is a fly in the house. Lice, bedbugs and fleas are filthy, but not 
nearly so filthy and not one-tenth as dangerous as the fly. 
Every house should be screened against flies, and all flies should be 
killed. But fly killing is useless unless you remove the filth that at- 
tracts them. Sprinkle borax or lime on your horse manure, and keep 
it in a covered box, or, if in the country, have the horse lot on the north 
side of the house and at such a distance from the same that the fly 
cannot bring the horse manure from the barn and deposit it on the 
food you eat. 55 
The use of fly traps is a lazy man's excuse for filth. Get rid of the 
filth and screen the house. Many children have been poisoned by drink- 
ing fly poison. The use of fly poison is a poor way to clean the premises. 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 
What is the difference between a fly and a louse? 
Which is the filthier? 
How many legs has a flea? A mosquito? 
Where is the fly hatched? What does he feed on? 
What diseases does he carry? How may the fly be destroyed? 
What disease does the flea carry? 
Why is Texas in great danger of the bubonic plague? 
How may the flea be destroyed? 
What three diseases are carried by the mosquito ? 
Where does a mosquito lay its eggs? 
How may mosquitoes be destroyed? 
How may these animals be kept out of the home ? 
How are bedbugs carried from one home to another? 
What disease do bedbugs carry? 
How many kinds of lice ? 
How may lice be destroyed? 
In what kinds of homes are flies, fleas, bedbugs and lice found ? 
Which one is the filthiest? What is the difference? Which is the 
most dangerous to man? 56 
PREVENTABLE 
. DISEASES , 
ty/read /fa&zse 
//pus* 57 
PREVENTABLE DISEASES NO. 1. 
The lesson today is about those diseases that affect school children, 
and it is to their interest to listen and find out what these diseases are, 
how they affect children, and how they may be prevented. 
Disease is any condition of the body that unfits it for its usual func- 
tions. A preventable disease is one that may be prevented. 
If you look at the chart in the upper left corner you will see what is 
called a cross section of the human head and neck. Locate, first, the 
nose, then the mouth, then the throat, and look at the point of the 
arrow and you will see the adenoids. Adenoids are an overgrowth at 
the back of the nose, just as a wart is an overgrowth on the skin, except 
that a wart is hard and horny, while adenoids are soft and mushy. 
Adenoids are not cancers, the danger is not the same as from a cancer. 
Adenoids are found in children, and continue to grow until they entirely 
close the natural canal through which the air should pass, and the child 
breathes through its mouth. Around the adenoid the air and mucus 
stagnate and form a splendid field in which any germ may grow. Look 
at the picture on the right. You may know some child that stands 
around witli the mouth open, in a listless, don't care condition. The 
hair is usually uncombed, they are lazy, face and hands unwashed. They 
never know their lessons perfectly, the, face is expressionless. Do not 
laugh at such a child, for he is diseased. This condition is due to the 
fact that the parents, through ignorance or carelessness, do not have the 
adenoids removed. You cannot see them with your eye, or feel them 
with your finger. No one but a trained physician can recognize ade- 
noids. But if you take cold easily, if you are hoarse, if you cannot 
breathe freely through your nose, and if you are sluggish and lazy and 
cannot keep up with the class, a physician should examine you. Ade- 
noids may be removed, and this condition corrected. 
When this condition is neglected the child's growth is stunted, the 
mind is not developed and the body is sapped of vitality because of the 
lack of pure air properly warmed and cleaned by the nose and the growth 
of germs in the stagnated mucus, so that the child, while growing into 
manhood, is very liable to any disease, especially diseases of the throat 
and lungs, such as diphtheria, croup, sore throat, bronchitis, pneumonia 
and finally tuberculosis. It is not known how many cases of diphtheria 
and tuberculosis occur in those having adenoids, but it is believed that 
a great majority of such cases occur in such children with adenoids, and 
in grown people who had adenoids when they were children. 58 
Diseased tonsils are the most common defects encountered in the 
throat. All enlarged tonsils are diseased, but not all diseased tonsils 
are enlarged. Children with diseased tonsils are generally sickly, suffer 
frequent attacks of sore throat and tonsilitis, and are predisposed to 
tuberculosis. They often suffer joint pains or rheumatism. Diseased 
tonsils should always be treated. Children free from diseased tonsils 
and adenoids are always healthier, happier and make more useful citi- 
zens than their less fortunate brothers and sisters. 
Remember, if you have any of these symptoms, and cannot breathe 
through your nose, that you are liable to be stunted in body and mind, 
and liable to contract diphtheria and tuberculosis. 
Do not allow yourself to go through school looking as this boy looks, 
and enter manhood with such a drawback, for you cannot succeed in 
life. 
Children's diseases, that are barred from school by law, are mumps, 
measles, whooping cough, itch, scarlet fever and diphtheria. Every 
child should know that they are handed from one child to another just 
as a toy or a book. They do not originate in any school or neighbor- 
hood; they are brought in. Like a song, after it is written, some per- 
son comes into the community and sings it, and, before long, every boy 
is whistling the air, and girls singing the song. 
When the British army started over to help the French murder the 
Germans, they began to sing "Tipperary." This song was brought to 
America, and every boy can now whistle the tune. When the Germans 
started down to take Paris and murder the French, they began to sing 
"Germany Over All." but this song has not been brought to America, so 
the boys haven't yet learned the air. You must come close enough to hear 
the tune before you can sing a song. The tune does not originate in 
the neighborhood ; some one must bring it in. 
And so with the measles, mumps and other diseases of children. They 
are brought to a town; you must come close enough to breathe in the 
poison or it must touch your body before you can contract the disease. 
Itch is caused by a small mite that burrows into the skin. It is a 
disease of filth, due to dirty hands, to swapping books, toys, clothes or 
other objects that are handled by those who have the disease. In order 
to catch the disease, the hands must come in contact with some object 
that,has the itch mite on it. Always keep your own hands clean, and do 
not borrow anything. If you contract the itch, wash your hands with 
soap and water, and apply a salve made of sulphur and kerosene oil. 
Mumps is a sewlling of the salivary glands at the angle of the jaw. 
It spreads from one person to another, and may be caught from a per- 
son before there is any swelling to be seen. It is a very simple disease, 59 
but may be followed by a very serious condition. When a boy or girl 
has such a swelling, they should be at home, and taken care of by a 
physician. 
Whooping cough lasts from six to eight weeks, and is like any other 
dry cough, except there is a little crow or peculiar whistle called 
"whoop" just at the end of the cough. It is given from one child to 
the other in the sputum or discharge from the nose and throat. Whoop- 
ing cough is not a serious disease, if proper care is taken, but careless- 
ness may cause it to be followed by bronchitis, pneumonia or tuber- 
culosis. The poison is in the discharge from the mouth and nose, and 
great care should be taken in handling these discharges if you would 
protect others. 
In chickenpox, there is a small black or brown spot in center of the 
sore, and in smallpox the same kind of sore occurs, so every child with 
chickenpox should see a physician. 
With chickenpox there is fever, backache, headache and sometimes 
many sores on the body. The matter in the sore carries the poison. 
In measles, the eye is red and watery, and sensitive to light. The 
skin is swollen and covered with an eruption of small red, bluish pim- 
ples; the inside of the mouth and throat is affected the same way; 
there is a cough and sometimes a sore throat. The red spots appear 
on the inside of the cheek. There is usually fever for twenty-four 
hours before the eruption appears. This disease is not very fatal, but, 
like many of the diseases of children, the effect on the child's system is 
such that other fatal diseases follow. 
Measles is at times a very severe disease; one which can not be dealt 
with lightly; one to which children should not be exposed. A child 
with measles should be put. to bed and kept there as long as it has any 
fever or cough. The room should be airy, but it should be darkened, 
because children with measles are very sensitive to light. The bed 
clothes should be light, because the child is apt to get too warm, kick 
off the covers, and suffer from the cold. A chilling in this way may 
predispose to pneumonia. Food should be light and should consist 
chiefly of nutritious broths, pasteurized milk, soft-boiled eggs, and the 
like. Ice lemonade will bring comfort to the inflamed throat. The 
child's eyes should be kept clean with a wash of boric acid, and should 
the fever get high the comfort of the little sufferer may be increased by 
sponging with tepid water and alcohol. Sometimes it is necessary to 
put an ice bag to the head, but, if the child is sick enough to require 
this, the physician's directions should be followed. 
When the fever and cough have gone, the child may be allowed to 60 
be up and about the room, but for a time should not indulge in violent 
exercise, because there is often some weakening of the heart muscle by 
the disease. The diet should be increased when the fever has gone 
away, and should include good, plain, strong foods. If there is a 
tendency to regain weight and strength slowly, the child may be given 
an increased amount of pasteurized cream or good butter. If the child 
prefers cod liver oil, this may be substituted. 
The important point about the prevention of the disease is the fact 
that measles is rarely transmissible after the fever has gone down. It 
used to be thought that the germs of measles were in the scales of skin 
which were shed at the close of the disease. It is thought by some that 
there may be carriers of measles-a third person may carry the infection 
from the sick to the well. The infection of measles is found in the secre- 
tions from the nose and throat during the fever. Therefore, the person 
suffering with measles should not be allowed to come in contact with 
well persons until the period of fever has well passed. Children with 
measles should be provided with a quantity of soft paper napkins, and 
as soon as the napkins become soiled they should be burned. Children 
should always hold a handkerchief in front of the mouth while cough- 
ing. This is a measure which tends to control the spread of measles, 
whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria and many other diseases, be- 
cause, during coughing and sneezing, sputum may be thrown several 
feet. Everything which has come in contact with measles patients 
should be sterilized before it is allowed to come in contact with other 
people or other things which may be handled or used by other people. 
Bed clothes, napkins, table linen, towels, and the like may be sterilized 
by boiling. 
Measles may lead to pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis and other 
diseases. 
In 1910, over 1,100,000 children in the United States had measles. 
Of these, more than 11,000 died. Of the 11,000 that died, 7480 had 
some form of pneumonia. Tuberculosis frequently follows measles, but 
no one can tell the exact number. 
Scarlet fever is highly contagious and is extremely fatal. There is 
usually high fever, and the higher the fever the brighter the eruption. 
This eruption is not in pimples or spots as measles, but is a scarlet 
blush covering of the skin. It does not show so plainly around the 
mouth, so the patient is said to be white around the mouth. The 
throat is sore and the tongue looks like a strawberry. Scarlet fever 
may affect the kidneys and cause inflammation that is fatal. It may 
leave the child with the ear diseased so that the ear runs for a long 
time and lead to an inflammation of the brain. A physician should be 61 
called, as no father or mother can safely care for a child with scarlet 
fever. Every precaution to keep down the spread of scarlet fever should 
be used. The discharge from the nose and throat, and possibly the skin, 
carries the infection. These discharges are carried on clothing, toys, 
hooks and other objects that are in the sick room. After the child re- 
covers, the skin is shed off in fine particles like bran. In order to 
protect the rest of the school, a child should not return until this shed- 
ding is complete and the child has a certificate from a physician. 
In 1911, the Texas Legislature passed a law, called the Sanitary 
Code. This law was made to protect those that are well from con- 
tagious diseases. It is a good law, and everyone should study this law, 
not to become a lawyer, but so that he may protect his family and 
friends. This law forbids any person with measles, whooping cough, 
mumps, German measles, or chickenpox, to attend school for twenty-one 
days. If this law was enforced, very few children would have these 
diseases. The Sanitary Code makes it the duty of the physician to 
tack a card 8x12 inches on the gates of the yard where a case of scarlet 
fever, diphtheria, smallpox, dengue and other contagious diseases of 
this character occur in the house. This card must have the words 
^Contagious Disease" printed in large letters on it. In place of the 
card, a yellow flag is sometimes used. This card or yellow flag is in- 
tended to notify the public that a contagious disease is present in the 
house, and, if the parent knows that it is contagious, he must put up 
the card or flag even before the physician arrives. 
In the picture above, the doctor has complied with the law. The 
family is under quarantine and the neighbors are protected. In the 
picture below, the doctor and parents have violated the law. No flag 
is there, no card is tacked upon the gate, and the woman with her inno- 
cent baby is allowed to go in and expose the child to a dangerous disease. 
If a man goes to your home and puts poison in your well, and all the 
family get sick and one of them dies, you have the man arrested and 
sent to the penitentiary or hanged. 
If a doctor or a parent allows you to come to a house, and your 
family catches the disease, and one of them dies, the doctor should be 
arrested and sent to the penitentiary or hanged. He is just as mean 
as the man that poisons the well. It frequently happens that you have 
the same careless, ignorant, law-violating doctor that allowed you to take 
the disease to attend you when you are sick. This violation of the law is 
not always due to carelessness or ignorance, but is due to the fact that 
the doctor is afraid he will offend the family that is quarantined. If 
it is due to ignorance or carelessness, or fear, the people are not safe 
when they send for such a doctor to attend them when sick. The doc- 
tor's ignorance will not keep a poisonous drug he prescribes from kill- 62 
ing them, nor will his carelessness furnish them the drugs needed. 
Never patronize a doctor who does not obey the law or who is ignorant 
of the Sanitary Code, nor one who does not see that a family is prop- 
erly quarantined, and the yellow flag is put up as prescribed by law. 
Such a physician will, through carelessness, carry the disease from one 
home to another in his clothing. He does not have the interest or the 
welfare of the community at heart. He is not professional but is prac- 
ticing only for the money there is in it. Every family should have a 
copy of the Sanitary Code. 
The Sanitary Code is intended to protect the neighbors, but the 
family where the disease exists must also be protected. You have been 
told never to take a vessel from the sick room to be used by those who 
are well. No clothing or bedding should be used by the well that is 
used by the sick until it has been boiled. When the patient is well, all 
the vessels should be boiled and the room disinfected before it is occu- 
pied again. During the time a person is sick with any preventable dis- 
ease, the vessels should be boiled each day. The slop bucket should con- 
tain some antiseptic, like carbolic acid or lime, and, when emptied, its 
contents should be burned or buried in lime or ashes. All the dis- 
charges from the body may carry the disease, and should be treated in 
this manner. You have been told how a sick room should be kept. A 
mosquito bar should be placed over the bed so as to keep the flies and 
mosquitoes away from the patient. Elies and mosquitoes carry dis- 
ease, and the room should be screened against them. 
You see the picture above. No one in the room-nothing but the 
bed, the table and the patient. Just enough furniture to make him 
comfortable. But below it is different. One ease of typhoid fever 
may occur in the family, but when it spreads to other members some- 
one has failed to do his duty, for, if properly handled, preventable dis- 
eases do not spread. See the mother and the baby again; it makes no 
difference what the disease is, the mother is very careless who carries 
her child to see the sick, or allows them to go into the home where 
there is a sick person. It is very bad for a child to attend a funeral. 
The mother who carries her child into see a case of measles, whoop- 
ing cough, mumps or scarlet fever, so that the child may have the dis- 
ease when it is young, and at the right time of the year, is either too 
ignorant to rear a child, or is too careless to care for one. At the 
judgment day, many a mother will find herself guilty of murder be- 
cause of such foolishness. Not many deaths occur from measles and 
whooping cough directly, but these two diseases lead to conditions that 
kill more children than any disease, except summer diarrhea. Ten per 
cent of all babies born die from diarrhea; due to filthy food. At least 
20 per cent of all other deaths among children is due to the effects of 63 
measles or whooping cough. We fear yellow fever and leprosy, but 
measles kill ten thousand times more children than either of these ter- 
rible diseases. Every precaution should be used to protect the neigh- 
bor and the family, because to spread a disease by neglecting the sick 
is to rob and murder your neighbor and your family. 
u 
Smallpox.-There are some simple remedies that protect against dis- 
ease. Vaccination produces a mild type of smallpox. There are but one 
or two sores on the arm. There is very little fever and very little pain. 
Long ago, when the physicians were careless, bad sores occurred, and you 
sometimes hear an old man or an old woman tell some terrible story 
of the time when they were vaccinated from an old scab that had been 
kept for years in beeswax. Such methods produce blood poison; not 
true vaccination. In this day, if a bad arm occurs, it is due to one of 
three things-the carelessness of the men wdio make the vaccine matter, 
the doctor who vaccinates, or the person who is vaccinated. The United 
States inspects all the laboratories that make vaccine matter, and it 
must be pure. But frequently the doctor is careless in washing his 
hands, or the arm, or the person himself scratches the sore. Vaccina- 
tion is harmless if done by a competent doctor, and the person takes 
care of his arm. Never scratch the vaccine sore; follow the doctor's 
directions, then, if you have a had arm, blame the doctor. While one 
sore on the arm may hurt, it does not hurt nearly so bad as one hun- 
dred scattered over the body. With smallpox, you have a chill, fol- 
lowed by three days of high fever. Then, if you get well, for ten • or 
fifteen days you have from fifty to five hundred sores all over your body; 
You may die, or lose your eyesight or hearing, your hair may come 
out, or your constitution weaken for life. Smallpox never leaves you 
in better condition afterwards than before. The least objection to the 
smallpox is that you may have your face marked with pock marks as 
close together as those in the picture. Is it better to have one pock 
mark on the arm, or one hundred on the face? Every child should be 
vaccinated before it enters school, so as to protect itself from smallpox. 
Every precaution to prevent its spread should be used in smallpox. 
When a case occurs in the home, it is a violation of the law for any 
occupant of the house to leave the house, and the friends who have been 
exposed, unless successfully vaccinated, must be quarantined also. 
The Sanitary Codes forbids a person with a contagious disease to use 
any public road or street, or to attend any public assemblage. The 
Sanitary Code makes it the duty of every doctor, or person, to report 
all contagious diseases to the city or county health officer, whose duty 
it is to levy the proper quarantine and use all precautions to stop the 64 
spread of the disease, and to disinfect the house when the case .is 
finished. 
By contagious diseases is meant cholera, bubonic plague, typhus, ty- 
phoid fever, yellow fever, leprosy, smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, 
epidemic meningitis, dengue, epidemic dysentery, trachoma, tuberculosis 
and anthrax. The Sanitary Code excludes from school measles, whoop- 
ing cough, mumps, German measles and chickenpox. 
The Sanitary Code is a State law intended to suppress the spread of 
preventable diseases and to protect the health of the people. Anyone 
who violates this law is guilty of a misdemeanor and is liable to a fine 
of from $10 to $1000. 
Disinfection.-After any contagious disease, the home is not safe un- 
less it has been kept sanitary during the disease. Besides the usual care, 
these rules should be followed in order to keep down the spread of the 
disease: 
1. Disinfect promptly the stools and urine. For this purpose, keep 
constantly in the bed pan, or other vessels intended to receive the pas- 
sages from the bowels and bladder, a moderate quantity of the disin- 
fectant solution. Pour a pint or two of the chloride of lime or white- 
wash disinfectant- over the discharges as soon as they are passed, and 
allow the vessel to stand one hour before emptying it. After emptying 
it, wipe the soiled parts with paper, and then with a towel kept wet 
with the disinfectant solution. Dry thoroughly. 
2. After the stools and urine have stood in contact with the disin- 
fectant one hour, they may be emptied. They should be emptied into 
a water closet, or else into a hole dug for the purpose at least two hun- 
dred feet from the well or house, and thoroughly covered with lime or 
ashes. 
3. The nurse should wash her hands in the disinfectant solution 
immediately after handling the patient, discharges, bed clothing or any- 
thing else in the sick room. The hands should be rinsed in clean water 
after disinfection. For this purpose, use the carbolic acid solution. 
4. Add some disinfectant solution to all water which has been used 
for bathing or washing the patient, and allow to stand half an hour be- 
fore emptying. 
5. Keep a washtub full of disinfectant solution and soak all soiled 
sheets, towels, clothing and linen in the solution for one-half hour be- 
fore washing, and then boil. 
6. Dishes, glasses and other utensils used by the patient should be 
kept for use alone. Boil them after the patient has used them. 
7. Screen the windows and doors of the sick room against flies. Kill 
or catch the flies that get in. 65 
8. Let no one come into the room except those necessary for the 
care of the patient. 
When the patient is well, if you have kept the room clean during the 
attack, it is not so difficult to get the room ready for use afterwards. 
The room is never safe until it has been disinfected. 
Fumigation - To fumigate a room after the patient is well, sulphur 
may be used, but, unless plenty of moisture is kept within the room, 
this kind of fumigation will be of no value. The simplest method is to 
use formaldehyde gas. 
This gas is very poisonous, and must be handled, carefully. The 
room must be sealed with strips of paper pasted over every' crack and 
hole, or the gas will escape and no benefit will be gained. To fumigate 
an average-sized room, the only utensils needed are an old three-gallon 
scrub bucket made of zinc (not wood) and three bricks. Secure from 
the drug store 13| ounces of potassium permanganate and a. quart of 
formaldehyde. Place the bricks in the center of the room on the car- 
pet or the floor, aijd the bucket on the bricks. Close the room up tight 
and place strips of wet paper over all the cracks and. openings. Put 
the formaldehyde into the bucket and pour permanganate over it. 
Leave the room at once, closing the door tightly and do not open the 
room for at least six hours. It is a good, plan to stretch all linen, 
quilts, etc., on a line, so as to expose as much surface as possible to the 
disinfectant gas. They should not be thrown in a heap. To fumigate 
books, suspend them by their covers so that the pages shall fall open as 
much as possible. 
After the termination of the case, and the room has been fumigated 
as described, scrub the floors and woodwork of the room with soap and 
water and a good disinfectant; then sun and air the room thoroughly. 
The following preparations may be used as disinfectants: 
Carbolic Acid Solution.-Add three ounces (six tablespoonfuls) of 
carbolic acid to half a gallon of water, or, for larger quantities, in this 
proportion. Mix thoroughly with a stick. Remember, this is poison if 
swallowed. 
Chloride of Lune Solution.--Add about one-third pound of the best 
chloride of lime to a gallon of w'ater. 
Whitewash.-Take a pint of good, fresh quicklime, in lumps, and 
add to it slowly about three-quarters of a pint of water. The lime 
should first steam up strongly and then break up into a fine dry powder. 
If it does not steam up, the limo is worthless as a disinfectant. (Do 
not buy powdered lime at the store. Air-slaked lime-that is, lime that 
is powdered when bought or that has become so by exposure to the air)-• 66 
is worthless for disinfecting.) Mix one part of this powdered lime, im- 
mediately after you have prepared it yourself, with eight parts of water. 
This makes a thick whitewash, or "milk of lime," as it is called. Make 
this up fresh every day and keep it in a. covered vessel. If the slaked 
lime or the milk of lime stands exposed to the air, it is no more a dis- 
infectant than so much chalk and water. Always stir up this milk of 
lime thoroughly before using. 
All this care during the time that the person is sick and the disin- 
fection of the room after recovery may seem to be unnecessary trouble, 
but such advice is not based upon imagination, but upon fact. After 
a case of many of the contagious diseases, the germs have been formed 
in the dust of the floor and on the wall. Scarlet fever has been trans- 
mitted by a letter, smallpox by a blanket, whooping cough by a hand- 
kerchief, and diphtheria by a cat. 
QUESTIONS. 
1. Name a condition that retards the growth of the body and de- 
velopment of the mind. 
2. How may it be remedied ? 
3. When must the card or flag be put at the gate? 
4. What is the Sanitary Code? 
5. What diseases are barred from school, and for how many days? 
6. Describe the symptoms of measles. 
7. What diseases follow measles? 
8. Who is injured when a physician fails to report and to quaran- 
tine a contagious disease? 
9. What diseases are contagious? 
10. How should the room be kept? 
11. How may the other members of the family be protected? 
12. How may a room be disinfected? 
13. What discharges are particularly dangerous in chickenpox, 
measles, and scarlet fever? 
14. Which is worse, vaccination or smallpox? 
15. How do you care for a sick room when occupied? 
16. How do you prepare it for use after the patient is well? 67 
PREVENTABLE DISEASES NO. 2. 
Nearly all the preventable diseases are caused by germs. The germs 
are handed from one person to another. They are usually found in the 
discharges from the body, but in some diseases, as in chickenpox, small- 
pox and scarlet fever the germ may be in the eruption. 
There are about fifteen hundred kinds of germs, but only fifty or 
sixty different kinds cause disease, so far as is known. Some diseases 
are caused by germs, but the germs have not been isolated. A germ is 
a plant or animal. Thep multiply by dividing in the middle, just 
as when you tie a string around the middle of a sausage and it is cut 
in two parts. In some germs this division may occur every twenty 
minutes; so it may seem that they increase rapidly. In twenty-four 
hours, many thousand germs are formed. Germs are so small that you 
may place one million on your thumb nail and not be able to see them 
without a, microscope. They throw out a poison, just as the human 
body does; this poison causes the fever and. the other symptoms of the 
disease. 
Two hundred and fifty years ago physicians used beetles and bugs 
and snake skins and horns as medicine. They believed that disease 
was a mysterious thing that came from the air or the earth. Hoodoos 
and enchantments were used. Charms were worn to protect them in 
some miraculous way from disease. Relics of such barbarity are still 
practiced by some in this late day. Mothers sometimes hang a bag of 
assafoetida around a child's neck to prevent disease. Some grown men 
carry an Irish potato in their pocket to cure rheumatism. Such rem- 
edies are harmless. If a child enjoys the smell of assafoetida, it may 
be all right as a perfume, but it does not prevent disease. The cause 
of many diseases have been found. Many years ago, a man believed 
that germs caused disease, but he could not see them. A friend of his 
was looking out of the window and happened to look through a bubble 
in the window pane and saw that it would magnify. This friend cut 
out this piece of glass and sent it to him, hoping that he could see 
germs. But he could not. This discovery, however, led to the manu- 
facture of a microscope through which germs could be seen. 
If you see a man riding along the road, you can tell whether he is 
in a buggy or wagon, for you are familiar with both. Physicians have 
studied diseases until they are as familiar with germs as you are with 
your toys or books. If you send a small amout of the discharge from 
your throat to a competent physician, he can take the microscope and 68 
D/P/1T/1ERSA 
MEN/NG/T/S 
TYPHO/D 
LOCH JAW 
TUBERCULOSIS 
PREVENTABLE DISEASES 
NO. Z 
PcpMzrva 
fat/er' 
foefyauj 
^/a^creulosis 
Ewe. 
THEN KILL THEM. 69 
tell whether you have the germ in your throat that causes diphtheria. 
This germ is not like any other germ any more than a buggy is like a 
wagon, and it is as easy for him to distinguish it 'as it is for you to 
tell one from the other. Look closely and you will see the little egg- 
shaped dot with the striped body like a tail. Each one of these are 
a separate living thing, and is capable of producing diphtheria in this 
way. If you take one sprig of grass and plant it in the yard, you 
water it, let the sunshine get to it, and it grows; it may be some time, 
but, after awhile, ihe whole yard will be covered with grass. And so 
it is with one of these little bodies. They are coughed up and spit out 
by a child that has had the disease. These little bodies are carried by 
the wind, or on the hands, or handkerchief, on toys or on the food to 
the mouth of another child, and work down until they find a little 
crevice or crease in the tonsil or throat and lodges. Here it grows like 
the lichen or moss on the tree. When the bark dies, it grows faster, 
so does this little patch of germs kill the mucous membrane where it 
lodges. When this occurs, the fever comes from the poison sent from 
the patch into the blood. This poison affects the brain and nervous 
system, and, before the mother hardly knows it, the child is very sick 
and dies, unless a physician is called and the proper care is taken. 
Twenty years ago, about 70 of every 100 children that had diph- 
theria died. Now, when the antitoxin is used soon enough, only 3 
out of every 100 die, or at least 63 children out of every 100 are 
saved. Anti means against, toxin is a poison, so antitoxin is a remedy 
for the poison of diphtheria. It is made in this manner: A strong well 
horse is given a mild dose of the germs; he has a light attack of diph- 
theria. When he is well, more is given him, and this is repeated until 
he is not affected by the germs. The horse's body has manufactured 
an antitoxin or remedy for the disease. This antitoxin floats in the 
blood. You remember that people have certain diseases but once be- 
cause their bodies make an antitoxin for the disease. And so the horse 
has overcome the germs and his blood contains the antitoxin. The 
blood is then drawn from the horse and is put into bottles that are 
sealed, and this is the antitoxin that cures diphtheria in the child. 
Taking the blood from the horse does not kill him any more than it 
does to cut your finger and let it bleed, but it does cure the child with 
diphtheria, and is the only certain cure. There is no remedy or drug 
that can be relied upon to do any good except this antitoxin. Some of 
the horses used for this purpose live a long time, they are well treated, 
kept fat and sleek, and are valued at many thousand dollars because 
they have saved many lives. 
When this little body you see in the picture lodges in the throat, it 
produces diphtheria. If in a narrow place in the windpipe, it is some- 70 
times called membranous crop, but is diphtheria, because they are the 
same disease. The only difference is that when diphtheria occurs in this 
narrow place a very large dose of antitoxin must be given, else the child 
will choke to death in from six to fifteen hours. There is a peculiar 
sound in that form of diphtheria called membranous croup, caused by 
the flapping of the patch or membrane; a sound that is unlike any- 
thing else. 
Diphtheria, is communicated from one child to another. It is, ac- 
cording to the Sanitary Code, contagious, and should be quarantined, 
and all precautions taken that the law prescribes, and the doctor who 
does not force the family to use such precautions should be prosecuted, 
for he is as mean a man as one who pours poison in your well. Diph- 
theria is especially liable to attack those with adenoids and enlarged 
tonsils. 
After a child has recovered from diphtheria, there may still remain 
some of the germs in the throat, and another child may catch it from 
them. Before a child is sent back to school an examination of the secre- 
tion from the throat should be made by a physician with a microscope 
so as to protect the other pupils. This is the only safe way. 
All the clothing worn and the entire house should be disinfected as 
described in the previous lesson. There, are many cases of diphtheria 
that are called something else. More than 487 deaths from diphtheria 
are reported on an average each year in Texas, and there are many cases 
that recover. Diphtheria each year costs the people more than $274,241 
to care for those that were sick, and to bury those that die. 'It is a 
very important matter to find out every person that has the disease 
and exclude them from school. 
In the next picture, you see the micro-organism or germ of menin- 
gitis. These are seen as coffee grains grow, two in a pod, with the flat 
sides together. A bacteriologist is a physician who studies bacteria or 
micro-organisms. The bacteriologists have called these diplococcus, a 
big word that means two germs in the same shell. The germ that causes 
meningitis is found in the discharge from the nose and throat. When 
a person has this germ, and clears his throat and spits the discharge 
on the floor, it is powdered into dust and may lodge in another per- 
son's nose. In this way meningitis is handed from one person to an- 
other. These pictures are enlarged many times. If you should grind 
this dust from a floor where diseased persons have been spitting, you 
could destroy very few of the germs. They are so small that many 
thousands have to be put together before they can be seen. When the 
meningitis germs have gotten into the body, they grow very rapidly. 
Meningitis is a most terrible disease; the pain is horrible. The patient 
has spasms, the muscles of the back contract, the head is drawn back- 71 
ward until the body rests on the heels and the back of the head. Death 
eases the pain in from eight hours to two days. There is no drug that 
affects the disease; a serum is injected into the spinal column. This 
serum is the only remedy. Meningitis, is a preventable disease, for, if 
you do not expose yourself to the poison, you cannot have it. Pneu- 
monia is caused by a germ that is similar to the germ of meningitis. 
And, like it, pneumonia may be prevented. Unless a person comes in 
contact with the poison, he will never have pneumonia. Certain sea- 
sons of the year seem to cause these two diseases, but this is not true. 
These germs thrive and grow better in the winter time when people 
take cold and have sore throats. It is not the season but the condition 
of the person, and the prevalence of the poison that causes these dis- 
eases. If the nose and throat are kept clean and the person is healthy, 
even though many of the neighbors mave pneumonia, a person may 
miss it. Do not sit in a draft. Do not cool off too rapidly when hot. 
Do not allow your feet to remain cold or wet. Watch closely a bad 
cold or a sore throat. 
The germs of diphtheria, meningitis and pneumonia are rapid in 
their growth, and the diseases come on rapidly, and last but a short time. 
Typhoid fever develops slowly. After the typhoid germ enters the 
person's mouth, passes with the food into and through the stomach and 
into the intestines, it lodges in a crease of the intestine and begins to 
grow. It attaches itself to the wall of. the intestine and after awhile 
the mucous membrane or skin on the inside of the intestine is killed, 
and a sore is formed. The germ has killed, the mucous membrane, and 
continues to grow on the surface until an ulcer is formed. As soon as 
the mucous membrane is dead, the little blood-vessels around the ulcer 
absorb the poison that the germ makes. This poison floats in the blood 
over the entire body and produces fever. Fever is not a disease, but 
the body tries to burn up the poison in the blood and this heat caused 
in this way is fever. When a person has fever, there is always some 
poison in the blood. Do not worry about the fever, but find out the 
cause, for if there is not too much fever, the body will burn up the 
poison. The fever or oxidation of this poison is a good thing; it is 
nature's way of getting rid of it. It is not the fever that kills, but it 
is the poison. In typhoid, the fever lasts until the body can oxidize 
all the poison, and manufacture a serum that will kill the germ. This 
takes from twenty-one to thirty-five days, and sometimes longer. After 
the germ is dead, the sore or ulcer that has been made must be healed, 
and even then some of the live germs may be living in the bowels. A 
person is not well of typhoid fever when the fever subsides. It takes 
several days for this ulcer to heal. 
There are four things of importance about typhoid fever, first, that, 72 
instead of waiting until the body can make the serum and cure the dis- 
ease, you have have this serum given you by a physician and you will 
not have the disease; second, that typhoid is a disease of the bowel, that 
there is a sore or ulcer in the bowels and the proper diet is more im- 
portant than any medicine, and that improper diet kills more people 
than the disease; third, that the patient is not well when the fever leaves 
him, that for eight or ten days care is necessary as to diet; fourth, that 
the live germ may be in the bowels and be passed out in an action and 
infect other people with typhoid, after the patient is well. 
Typhoid Mary was a cook who carried the living germs in her body, 
although she herself had no fever. She was found cooking for a family 
who had typhoid fever. She disappeared, and, when an epidemic of 
typhoid fever broke out in an institution, she was found cooking in the 
kitchen. Several deaths had occurred because of the disease she had 
carried to those who hired her as cook. She was a murderess, without 
knowing it, or intending to be. There was no law to fit her case; she 
was not sick. There may be many other carriers of such diseases, but 
we do not know them as such. When an epidemic occurs, the cause 
must be found, or the epidemic cannot be stopped. The first thing to 
do is to report the case to the health officer, so that he can help the 
family physician find the cause and remove it, and so that the rest of 
the community may clean up their homes and thus protect themselves. 
When you see a person with typhoid fever, remember that person has 
taken some food or drink that contains the germs that came from the 
passage from a person that had the disease, and that they may have 
been carried by a fly and placed on his food. 
Look at the next picture. None of these germs are alike. The 
diphtheria is egg shape with a striped tail. 'The meningitis, two in 
the same shell; the typhoid is round'with many little flagella or tails. 
Lockjaw or tetanus is rod-shaped with many tails, and the tuberculosis 
or consumption is rod-shaped without the tails. It is not difficult with 
the microscope to tell the germ and thus to know exactly the disease. 
This is not guess work nor imagination, and for anyone to deny or 
argue whether a physician is right when he has examined the specimen 
with a microscope is foolish. You can tell a book or a ball from an egg. 
And so can he distinguish one disease from another. 
The lockjaw germ is found in the dust on old wood, rusty nails, iron, 
and such things. It will not grow in the air. When a nail is stuck 
into the foot, the germ goes in with the nail. The fact that such wounds 
bleed does not prevent lockjaw. Unless the germ is washed out by the 
blood, and this does not often happen, the wound should be opened, 
washed out with water and some antiseptic to kill the germ and then 
push a small piece of cloth well up into the wound so that it will not 73 
close, and exclude the air. Lockjaw germs grow in the wound in the 
foot; they float through the blood and lodge in the spinal column and 
brain. There is high fever duo to the poison, with spasms and finally 
death. There is no cure or remedy. A serum has been made which 
will prevent lockjaw, but it must be used before the attack begins. 
When any dirty wound closes and the air cannot get in and the blood 
get out, it is best to give this serum. 
The tuberculosis germ is rod-shaped, but has no tails or flagellas like 
the lockjaw germ. It is found in the sputum and passage from the 
bowels and kidneys, and in the air that a consumptive breathes out. 
Tuberculosis may be taken in the food, water, air, or dust, that contains 
the germ; the germ may also drop in a scratch and get into the body 
in that manner. Tuberculosis is a horrible disease, lasting for months 
and years until the entire body is starved to death. Every part of the 
body may be infected. Tubercular abscess may form in the glands or 
muscles, in the bones or joints, or in the brain and in the internal or- 
gans. The whole body becomes rotten with the disease, and the person 
coughs and suffers for months and months. Tuberculosis is the "White 
Plague." No serum has yet been made that will cure the disease. 
There is no drug that will cure it. No man has any recipe or pre- 
scription that will cure. And any man claiming to cure tuberculosis 
with a medicine is a fraud. Patent medicines that are covered with 
letters from people who were cured are a fraud. Either the letters are 
lies, or the people did not have tuberculosis. Many people die with 
tuberculosis because they have depended upon patent medicine as a 
cure. If every man who makes a patent medicine was forced' to put 
the true formula on the bottle and was forced to tell the truth about 
the contents of the bottle, very few men would stay in the business, be- 
cause you can buy at the drug store the drugs used in patent medicines, 
and buy them for one-half to one-tenth the cost of the patent medicine. 
Patent medicines are frequently manufactured by men who are not 
physicians and do not know themselves what the effects of drugs are. 
Never let a person with tuberculosis take patent medicine. 
There is a way to live that will stop the disease, if this way of living 
is begun early enough. You must sleep and live, winter and summer, 
spring and fall, in the open air. Never in the house, but in a tent or 
open porch. You must keep your body dry and warm. You must eat 
at regular intervals rich food. Not too much, but enough to build up 
the body. You must go to bed and sleep from 9 o'clock until morn- 
ing, then take a bath before breakfast. Never take medicine; save the 
stomach for food. No stimulants, coffee, tea or whisky. Never put 
anything in the lungs but pure air. No smoke from tobacco or foul air 74 
from a stuffy room. If you have a physician to attend you, follow his 
directions. 
By living in this manner, a person may outlive or overcome tuber- 
culosis, and those who have not contracted the disease may not take it 
if they will not come in contact with those who have it. 
Diphtheria, meningitis, typhoid, tetanus and tuberculosis are caused 
by germs. These germs enter the body, grow and produce a poison that 
causes the symptoms. In diphtheria, meningitis, typhoid and tuber- 
culosis, these germs are thrown off from the body in the discharges from 
the mouth and nose, or from the bowels and kidneys, and in typhoid 
and tuberculosis all the discharges may be loaded with the germs. From 
the mouth and nose small particles of the discharges drop on the pillow 
and floor, or on the vessels from which the patient is fed. From the 
bowels and kidneys the sheet is stained, and where the vessels are 
emptied the germs are left. The one waiting on the sick person gets 
small particles on their hands, and in handling other objects place the 
germs on them. The fly, the greatest enemy of man, feeds on such dis- 
charges and, when its bowels move, deposits them in the fly specks on 
the food in the dining room. In this way, when diphtheria, typhoid 
and tuberculosis occur in a home, the germs may be scattered over the 
entire house. 
No disease that is caused by germs is inherited. A child may inherit 
a narrow chest, but he does not inherit tuberculosis. If a baby whose 
mother has tuberculosis is taken from the mother before the germs have 
entered its body, it will not have the disease. A child does not inherit 
tuberculosis, but when the mother kisses her baby she may plant the 
germs on the child's lips. Such carelessness is the reason that the dis- 
ease was thought to be due to heredity. 
Every house should have a. sick room. You have been taught how it 
should be furnished. After it is prepared for a sick person, great care 
is necessary to keep from spreading disease. Nothing should be taken 
from a sick room until it has been cleaned of all germs. Heat will kill 
germs. All clothing, dishes and spoons should be boiled, and every- 
thing that is of little value should be burned. The one who waits on a 
sick person should never do any cooking, and very little work in any 
other room than the sick room. To sprinkle stuff on the floor and un- 
der the bed is foolishness. The best thing to do is to keep the room 
clean. There should be no rugs on the floor; then the floor may be 
scoured. Sick people suffer more from filth on the floor than they do 
from scouring the floor. 'The vessel for the discharge should have some 
disinfectant in it at all times. When the vessel is emptied, the dis- 
charge should be poured in the toilet or buried in lime. The rules 
given in the previous lesson should be followed. No visitors should be 75 
allowed in a sick room where a patient has diphtheria, typhoid, tuber- 
culosis, or any disease due to germs. The room should lie well aired 
and lighted. The windows and doors should be screened. To place 
sheets wet with an antiseptic over the door is like trying to catch a 
sunbeam with a fish net. Open all doors and windows if the weather 
will permit. Sunlight and fresh air purify the room; darkness and 
foul air help to cause disease. Keep the room clean, but do not try 
to keep the germs in the room. Only one person should nurse the sick. 
They should never breathe the breath of a patient; they should always 
wear white clothing, for germs are so small that they cannot be seen. 
If the clothing is soiled to such an extent that the filth can be seen, it 
should be changed at once. The clothing of the one who is nursing, 
like the bedding and clothing of the patient, should be boiled after dis- 
infection. She should not eat in the sick room, and she should wash 
her hands after she has handled the patient, or vessels used by him. 
The sick room should be made as comfortable as possible. At home a 
room may be made sanitary, but a hospital is better. 
Look at the picture. See the flies. The clothing hanging on the 
wall and on the bed may become the means of carrying the disease. 
Look at the window without a screen, and the slop bucket without a 
top. You can imagine the smell of such a room. See the filth on the 
floor, and the slovenly dressed woman who is handling the medicine in 
a careless manner. Unless the physicians directions are followed, and 
the patient is given the medicine at the correct time, it will do little 
good. Unless the patient is fed just the diet the doctor orders, he may 
be injured. 
The one who waits on a sick person must be careful in all things. 
No person can be comfortable where the flies cover him, or where the 
odor of an open slop bucket is always present; where the trash is al- 
ways on the floor, and the medicine is carelessly handled. 
In this picture, you see only the bed the patient, the table and the 
nurse. The slop bucket is covered, the window and door are screened. 
The patient is comfortable and the other members of the family are 
being protected. 
To spread disease and neglect the sick is to rob and murder your 
family and your neighbors. A disease that is caused by germs may be 
prevented. Live germs cause disease. Lead germs are harmless. Then 
kill them with boiling water, soap, sunshine and fresh air. 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTION'S. 
What is a germ ? 
Name five diseases caused by germs. 76 
Describe the appearance of the germ that causes diphtheria;, typhoid, 
tuberculosis. 
How do germs in the body cause fever? 
What is an antitoxin? 
Where are antitoxins manufactured? 
How do germs enter the body in each of the five diseases? 
How do germs leave the body in each of the five diseases? 
How may these germs be killed? 
Describe the proper manner of caring for a patient with a germ 
disease. 
Describe the handling of sheets and clothing, discharges, and dishes. 
Compare the two pictures and name the difference. 
What is a. disinfectant? Name two. 
How are they used? 77 
VITAL STATISTICS. 
BIRTH REGISTRATION. 
In the old Egyptian feasts, a mummy was carried through the room 
and all the guests were expected to look at it, to remind them that some 
day the end would come, and that they should live, so that, when the 
end came, they would not regret their manner of living. Every boy 
and girl should stop and think that childhood, with its pleasures in the 
school room and on the playground, must end and that, almost before 
they know it, they will be men and women, that father and mother will 
be gone and they will be thrown on their own resources to take care of 
themselves, and to meet, day after day, the obstacles that are found in 
the lives of men and women. 
Boys and girls should remember that society demands certain ideals, 
that the State requires certain standards, and they should attempt to 
reach those ideals and attain those standards. When a boy is 10 'years 
old, he is responsible for his moral acts. By this time, he should know 
right from wrong, and should do right. If he does not do right, he 
can be held responsible. Before this age, his father is responsible for 
him. No boy at any age, who is manly, would bring disgrace on his 
father by his acts, but some boys are not manly, and so, until he is 18, 
he may be sent to the reformatory; after 18, if the crime is sufficient, 
he may be sent to the penitentiary, or may be hanged. At 21, he can 
own and sell property in his own name, and may vote in any election. 
Certain official positions have an age limit. Before a man may be 
President, he must be 35 years old, and judicial and legislative posi- 
tions are based upon age. Tn the navy and army, promotion depends 
upon the age. 
In the girl, many important events are safeguarded in law by an age 
limit. A girl cannot marry without the consent of her parents until 
she is 18. At this age, she may also own and sell property. At 16, 
she has reached the age of consent. Before this time, if a man assaults 
her, he is liable to the death penalty, but after 16 years of age she is 
supposed to know right from wrong and to be able to take care of her- 
self. Our State law has fixed these age limits. Every boy and girl 
should understand them. But when the mother and father are gone, 
the boy or the girl who has reached manhood or womanhood may fail 
to secure the protection of the law or the opportunity offered by the 
State, because they may not be able to prove their age. 
The Child Labor Law forbids that children under certain ages shall 78 
VITAL STATISTICS 
&/UU /Ufa/ rates' tL /&/ afaafaf? 
/^Aea^e^ 
a/arfy /rare, CL Aollsz o/^ a^ Ausn/E/t- ^Afe. ? 
Atearab. Peart reeaeds are /rare Pn/w/rtrt pfata pM mer/w. 79 
work in certain places, and longer than a certain time each day. This 
is a good law, because some parents who are poor do not understand 
that such work as is forbidden by the State will ruin the health of the 
child, and retard its growth. Every man or firm of men that hire chil- 
dren should know their ages before they employ them. It is the orphan 
child whose mother and father is dead, or whose mother or father has 
deserted it, who is forced to hire out so as to make a living. But how 
can a child, separated from its parents, prove its age? 
Some days, school is a pleasure; some days, school is a bore, but an 
education is necessary. The school is an opportunity in life that costs 
you nothing. The State pays the teachers, and will furnish books if 
the parents are too poor to buy them. 
When the Texas government was founded, many million acres of land 
was set aside for the purpose of maintaining the public schools. Gov- 
ernor James E. Eerguson, at a called session of the Legislature, in 1915, 
secured the passage of an act appropriating $1,000,000 to be spent in 
improving the public schools. The Legislature, the same year, passed 
the Compulsory Education Law. This law prescribes that every child 
between the age of 7 and 17 shall attend the public schools at least six 
months each year. Many children who would like to go to school, 
whose parents are dead, are not able to enter at 7 and will have to leave 
school before they are 17, because someone who is responsible for their 
care will want them to work. The child itself cannot prove its age. 
Any child's age may be easily established if its birth has been recorded. 
In the Capitol at Austin the State employs a State Registrar of Vital 
Statistics, whose duty it is to record and file the original copy of every 
birth certificate in the State of Texas, and to furnish a certified copy 
to anyone when needed. The county clerk, or the city clerk, in your 
home county, or city, should have a record of your birth certificate. 
Every boy and girl should see the county clerk or city registrar and 
find out whether its birth has been recorded, because, in the years to 
come, a copy of the certificate may he needed to prove your age in 
order to secure some advantage offered by the government, or to pro- 
tect yourself against some law that would work a hardship on you when 
under age. If your birth is not registered, have it registered at once. 
It costs nothing to record a birth certificate. When a birth has not 
been recorded, the family physician has been careless and violated the 
State law, for the law states plainly that every birth must be recorded 
within five days, on a form furnished by the State, written in durable 
ink, so that it will not fade. A person born before the law was made, 
may record the birth certificate, if the correct form is used and the sig- 
nature of the proper person is secured. The age is not all that is shown 
by birth registration, for there are many items on a birth certificate. 80 
(No , St.; Ward) 
Registered No 
Sex of 
Child 
Twin, triplet, 1 Number in order 
or other? | of birth 
(To be answered only in event of plural births) 
Legit- 
imate? 
Date of 
birth 19 
(Month) (Day (Year) 
FATHER 
FULL NAME 
MOTHER 
FULL MAIDEN NAME 
RESIDENCE 
RESIDENCE 
COLOR 
Age at Last Birthday 
COLOR Age at Last Birthday 
(Years) 
(Years) 
BIRTHPLACE 
BIRTHPLACE 
OCCUPATION 
OCCUPATION 
Number of children born to this mother, including present b 
Number of children of this mother now living 
If child is not yet named, make 
supplemental report, as directed 
Signature 
(Physician or Midwife) 
Address 
Filed , 19 
Registrar. 
I hereby certify that I attended the birth of this-child, who was at M., on the date above stated. 
(Born alive or Stillborn) 
PLACE OF BIRTH 
FULL NAME OF CHILD 
CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDING PHYSICIAN OR MIDWIFE* 
TEXAS STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 
Bureau of Vital Statistics 
STANDARD CERTIFICATE OF BIRTH 
Given name added from a supplemental report , 19 
Registrar. 
Note.-Let the teacher place principal items on blackboard. 
♦When there was no attending physician or midwife, then the father, 
householder, etc., should make this return. A stillborn child is one that 
neither breathes nor shows other evidence of life after birth. 
County 
City 81 
The name of the mother and her identity is a very important matter. 
If the parents are from a foreign country, or foreign State, and the 
child should inherit property, the birth record is one of the strongest 
proofs as to the parents. An inheritance, through the mother, depends 
frequently upon a birth record, as there is no other legal record except 
the marriage record as to the family, and that may be in a foreign coun- 
try. A birth registration is a record in the possession of the State, 
and is the strongest kind of evidence in any case in court. 
When a fine calf or pig is born, the birth record is kept. When a 
fine colt or pup is born, the papers are sent off so as to register the ani- 
mal, yet many babies that are more valuable than calves or colts or pigs 
or pups are not registered, and, when the baby grows into manhood, it 
loses a promotion in the army or navy, the protection of law, or its 
mother's inheritance. 
Joseph Ullman, a wealthy and honorable merchant of the United 
States, was charged as being a German spy in England during the 
European war; was given two weeks to produce his birth certificate so 
as to establish his citizenship as an American. 
The son of a Governor of North Carolina failed to secure a promo- 
tion in the navy because he could not furnish a certified birth certifi- 
cate as prescribed by law. 
A girl was born in Fort Worth. Her parents moved to Chicago. 
W'hen her parents died, she was forced to go from house to house, work- 
ing for her board because she could not be employed without a birth 
certificate. 
A family from Sweden lost an inheritance of more than $12,000 be- 
cause the mother's birth had not been recorded, as well as those of her 
children. 
It is a great expense to the State to have to prove the age of a per- 
son that is being tried in court. A Mexican boy was tried and con- 
victed and sentenced to be hanged, but his mother claimed that he was 
under 18 years of age. The case was appealed and the cost to the State 
amounted to several hundred dollars, for the boy was a pauper, and the 
State pays the cost in such cases. 
Much of the time of the Supreme Court is occupied in trying cases 
that are appealed on questions of age, when such questions could be 
easily settled if all births were recorded. As taxpayers have to support 
the government, it is to the interest of every taxpayer to see that all 
births are recorded, so as to lighten the taxes in every way possible. 
When an epidemic of yellow fever or smallpox breaks out, everybody 
is alarmed. The deaths are reported and quarantines are established 
so as to protect those that are not sick, that they may not have the dis- 
ease. But the numbers of babies that die every summer in Texas 82 
amount to more than those who die from these disease. Yet, no one 
knows how many babies are born or how many die each year, as all the 
births and deaths are not reported. And the people allow the children 
to die, and nothing in particular is done to stop this awful death rate. 
Two million five hundred thousand babies die each ten years in the 
United States from diseases that can be prevented, yet the newspapers 
print very little as to the number of babies that die. If 1000 people 
should die of yellow fever in Texas, everybody would demand that the 
State do something to prevent such a calamity. But there are over 
5000 babies that die each year from causes that could be prevented. 
Because they are babies, and because the people do' not know how many 
babies are born, and how many die, no attention is paid to it. 
The care of these babies cost the people each year over $1,500,000 
to pay for drugs and doctors and burials, yet, because only one baby in 
a family is sick and the disease is scattered over the whole State, noth- 
ing is done about it. 
When a flood occurs and $100,000 worth of property is destroyed, 
and forty or fifty lives are lost, the papers are full of the story, and 
people contribute money and clothes to help those who have suffered. 
Storms and floods cannot be prevented, yet many diseases that kill 
babies may be prevented. It costs the people over $1,500,000, and over 
5000 babies die, and no collection is taken up and no effort is made to 
prevent this loss of life and money. When all births and deaths are 
recorded, the people will reaiize what a tremendous and terrible thing 
is the infant mortality in Texas each year. 
NOTIFICATION OF DISEASES. 
Imagine, if yon will, a clear cool night after midnight, when every- 
body has left the streets and has gone to sleep. Not a noise is to be 
heard. The birds have stopped their songs and the cricket's chirp is 
the only sound. Suddenly, the report of a pistol, then another report, 
and another, then a fire bell and the whistle at the powerhouse blows 
so loud a blast that everybody is awakened. The siren whistles of the 
fire engines are heard in several directions and the loud gong on the 
wagon of the hook and ladder company. The mounted police gallop 
by and the whole town is awakened, or, in a smaller town, you hear a 
man yell "Fire," and from many throats go out the warning that a resi- 
dence is afire and there is danger to the surrounding houses. There are 
two reasons why this apparent insanity of noise is a very sensible thing. 
One reason is that a. part of the house that is burning may be saved, 
and the second reason is that the fire may be prevented from spreading 
to the neighboring houses. Much of this noise is due to excitement. 
The screaming and yelling may not be necessary, but everyone in sound 83 
of a fire should be awake, so that, should the fire spread, they may be 
able to protect their own property. What would the people of a city 
think if a man should sit quietly in his backyard and see his barn burn, 
with the wind carrying the burning pieces of shingles and bits of hay 
over on his neighbor's barn, and never give any alarm? It is likely that 
such a man would be tried for insanity, or, if his barn was insured, sus- 
picion would rest on his having set it on fire, for few people would fail 
to give the alarm in ease of fire. This is the way the people act when 
a piece of property is being destroyed by fire. 
Imagine a cool, crisp night. The child has been croupy all night. 
The doctor has just examined the throat, and the mother says: "Doc- 
tor, what is the matter?'' The old doctor, who has at heart the inter- 
est of the entire family, replies: Shew, it looks like diphtheria, and. if 
you say anything, the other children will have to stop school." Or, the 
doctor has been there several times, and one morning, when the child's 
fever is very high, the father, who is worried, asks: "Doctor, what is 
the matter ?" The doctor replies: "Don't say a word, but it may de- 
velop into scarlet fever, and if the health authorities find it out, they 
will quarantine 'you and you cannot attend to your grocery or bakery, 
or run your dairy," as the case may be, and the parents keep it quiet. 
The Legislature had in view just such physicians and parents, and 
a law was passed so that any physician or parent who fails to notify 
the health authorities when such disease exists shall be fined not less 
than $10 nor more than $1000. When a person fails to make public 
such disease, he should be fined. There is no law compelling a man 
to give the alarm when his house is on fire, so that his neighbor may 
protect his home, but there is a law compelling a person to notify the 
health officer of every case of smallpox, diphtheria, membranous croup, 
tuberculosis, cholera, plague, typhus and typhoid fever, scarlet fever, 
epidemic meningitis, dengue, epidemic dysentery, trachoma, and anthrax. 
These fourteen diseases are communicable; they spread from one per- 
son to another just as fire spreads. They are preventable just as fires 
are preventable, and the proper alarm should be given and the health 
authorities-should prevent their spread just as firemen limit the fire to 
one building. 
When the local health authorities do not control and confine a dis- 
ease, the people have a right to appeal to the State Health Board for 
protection, just as another fire company is called out if one is not suffi- 
cient to handle the fire. 
One Monday morning in Elgin, Texas, the people were up at 4 o'clock 
walking the streets with lanterns and sticks in their hands. Occa- 
sionally a woman would scream or a man yell, but the people hunted 
and hunted. A man had caught quite a number of rattlesnakes and 84 
had put them in a box in his yard. During the night, a hog had 
turned over the box and let loose a box of rattlesnakes in the town. A 
man, who had been awakened at 1 o'clock, had found two in his room. 
In the dark, he had been bitten several times, and gave the alarm. In 
the morning the city council met and passed an ordinance prohibiting 
anyone keeping rattlesnakes inside the city limits. 
Diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid fever and consumption are just as 
dangerous as rattlesnakes, and cause each year more deaths, yet no law 
is passed against a person keeping such a disease in any city. In fact, 
physicians treat many cases of these diseases, and never report them, so 
that the public may know where the danger is, and avoid it. In many 
foreign countries, when a case of contagious disease occurs, the physi- 
cian notifies the health authorities, and the authorities remove the pa- 
tient to the hospital. This is the right thing to do, for it offers the 
patient a better chance to recover, and protects the public from the 
disease. 
Look at the picture. Why should so much excitement occur? The 
barn is worth $75 or $100, with $50 or $75 worth of feed in it, and 
the horse is worth $75 or $100, all together, $200 or $275; but there is 
the home, it is worth, with its contents, $350 or $500, and it must be 
saved. The fire must not spread or the house will be lost. Look at 
the other picture. 
The old doctor will do what he can to save the sick child, but he is 
not protecting the neighbor's child. Such diseases as mentioned above 
do not come from foul air, from the season or from the surroundings, 
but from a poison that grows in the body. If the patient is properly 
quarantined, and cared for, the diseases cannot spread. Only careless- 
ness and negligence spread these diseases, and when a death occurs from 
diphtheria or typhoid someone is guilty of criminal carelessness. 
The great model for all people said: "Therefore, all things what- 
soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 
Would you want your nearest neighbor to secretly keep a box of rat- 
tlesnakes in his yard? Or, would you rather he would have a case of 
smallpox or diphtheria, in his home, and let no one know it was there. 
You cannot protect yourself unless you know where the danger is. 
Neither can your neighbor protect his family if you fail to obey the law 
as to these diseases. Because of the fact that physicians do not report 
such diseases, the health authorities cannot study the disease as to its 
prevalence, its location, or its nature, and by hiding or secreting such 
diseases the people spread the disease and hinder the authorities from 
stamping it out. 
If a disease is reported, and later other cases of the same disease 
occur, the authorities know where it began, and beginning with a study 85 
of the first case may find out how it was carried from the first case to 
the others. When people understand how a disease originates and how 
it spreads, it is an easy matter to prevent the disease. 
Certain diseases cannot be treated by the every-day family physician. 
So, by reporting this class of disease, experts, or those who study a 
particular disease, may be secured and the people receive better treat- 
ment. 
In cases of diphtheria, the State furnishes the antitoxin at about one- 
third the usual cost. So, if diphtheria is reported, the cost of serum 
may be lessened. 
Many diseases are contracted because of the diet, or the manner of 
living. One doctor cannot find out from a few cases in the same com- 
munity the facts that govern a disease, but, if all cases are reported, 
the people could be taught how to live and what to eat, so that they 
could resist disease. Texas is almost a nation in itself; there are three 
distinct belts-East Texas, with a great per cent of its population, 
negroes; Central Texas, mixed; and West Texas, where the Mexican is 
in the predominance. 
The bacon, cornbread and sorghum of East Texas is replaced by the 
frijole, chile, tortillas of West Texas. Hookworms and malaria of East 
Texas give place to tuberculosis and skin diseases in West Texas. The 
season of the year affects people so as to make them liable to disease. 
La grippe and pneumonia come in the winter and spring, while dysen- 
tery and typhoid fever come in the summer and fall. Yet, malaria and 
hookworm are not confined to East Texas, nor is tuberculosis to West 
Texas. Pneumonia, and la grippe occur in the winter and spring, and 
typhoid and dysentery in the summer and fall, and, unless these diseases 
are reported, the health authorities cannot locate the communities and 
study the cause, nor can they tell what conditions of the season make 
people liable to contract them. 
In this way, the people are deprived of the great advantages of health 
work, that of preventing disease by pointing out the cause and the 
method of communication. 
DEATH RECORD. 
Many boys and girls ask the question, "What is the necessity of re- 
cording a death?" Everyone can see that it is necessary to register a 
baby's birthday. It is plain enough that every disease that is com- 
municable from one person to another should be made a matter of pub- 
lic knowledge, so that the water supply may be investigated, or the well 
cleaned out, or the house disinfected by the health officers and other per- 
sons protected in this manner. But where a person is dead and buried, 
why keep a record? There are many reasons. 
The death record shows many items when completely filled out. 86 
Registered No 
[If death occurred in a hospital or institution, 
give its NAME instead of street and number.] 
Personal and Statistical Particulars 
Medical Particulars 
3 SEX 
4 Color or Race 
5 Single, 
Married, 
Widowed, 
or Divorced 
(Write the word) 
16 DATE OF DEATH 
191 
(Month) (Day) (Year) 
6 DATE OF BIRTH 
, 19 
(Month) (Day) (Year) 
17 I HEREBY CERTIFY, That I attended deceased from 
191 , to , 191 that I last saw h alive 
on , 191 and that death occurred, on the 
date stated above, at m. The CAUSE OF DEATH* was as follows: 
(Duration yrs mos ds. 
Contributory ' 
(Secondary) 
(Duration yrs mos ds. 
(Signed) M. D. 
,191 (Address) 
7 AGE yrs 
If less than 2 years state; if breast fed 
yes No 
mos ds. 
If less than 1 day 
hrs mins. 
8 OCCUPATION 
(a) Trade, profession, or particular kind of work 
(b) General nature of industry, business, or 
establishment in which employed (or employer) 
9 BIRTHPLACE 
(State or country) 
*State the Disease Causing Death, or in deaths from Violent Causes, state 
(1) Means of Injury; and (2) whether Accidental, Suicidal, or Homicidal. 
PARENTS 
10 NAME OF FATHER 
11 BIRTHPLACE OF FATHER 
(State or country) 
18 LENGTH OF RESIDENCE (For Hospitals, Institutions, Transients, or 
Recent Residents) 
At place In the 
of death yrs mos ds. State yrs mos ds. 
Where was disease contracted, 
if not at place of death? 
Former or usual residence 
12 MAIDEN NAME OF MOTHER 
13 BIRTHPLACE OF MOTHER 
(State or country) 
14 THE ABOVE IS TRUE TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE 
(Informant) . 
(Address) 
19 PLACE OF BURIAL OR REMOVAL 
DATE OF BURIAL 
191 
15 Filed 191 
Registrar. 
20 UNDERTAKER 
ADDRESS 
2 FULL NAME 
(No , St.; Ward) 
TEXAS STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 
Bureau of Vital Statistics 
STANDARD CERTIFICATE OF DEATH 
Note to teacher.-Place it on the board. 
County 
City.......................................................................... 
1 PLACE OF DEATH 87 
The name of the person, the date, the place, the parents, the cause 
of death, and the place of burial al] appear on the certificate. An old 
soldier died. In making the statement of his death so as to get a pen- 
sion from the government for his widow, who was helpless and without 
relatives, two friends in different parts of the State, because there was 
no record of the soldier's death, had to swear to the date and the fact. 
One swore that he died on the 13th day of August, the other, the 14th 
day of September. On account of this contradiction, the pension au- 
thorities did not know which was correct, nor from what day to date 
the pension, and the matter was held up for some time, thus depriving 
the poor old woman of help that was ready for her and that was badly 
needed by her. 
A death certificate filed at the proper time would have been sufficient 
evidence and would have settled the matter at once. 
A physician of East Texas bought a piece of land from a family of 
negroes, who claimed that the father was dead. The land was deeded 
to the father, and the widow and children could find no death record 
in the Vital Statistics Department of the State. So, while the father 
is gone, and (hey cannot prove that he is dead, the land cannot be sold 
without a special act of court. 
In the settlement of estates and life insurance policies, death certifi- 
cates are very important, and a settlement of either without a death 
certificate is a tedious and costly matter. 
The recording of deaths is a very important matter. For many years 
no records were kept. Physicians did not know how many people died 
of any particular disease. The people could form no idea, of the num- 
ber of deaths that occurred as the result of those diseases that were 
preventable. 
Pellagra had existed in Texas for many years, but not until in the 
spring of 1915, when reports began to show nearly one hundred deaths 
per month from pellagra, did the people become aware that the disease 
had reached a condition near that of a pest. The death rate among 
babies was no greater than usual, but in the summer of 1915, when it 
was found that near 15 per cent of all babies born died during the first 
year of life, the mothers of Texas began to be awake to the fact that 
something must be done to protect the innocent baby from the ravages 
of disease. 
Birth registration, notification of disease, and death records are the 
three elements of vital statistics, and upon these reports, filled out in 
full and complete, depend all the work that is done to prevent disease 
and death among the citizens. 
Typhoid fever causes 1535 deaths a year in Texas, and its costs $790,- 
672 to take care of the sick and to bury the dead. 88 
Tuberculosis causes 5736 deaths, and costs $1,467,098 each year. 
Each year, from diarrhea, 3834 babies die under 2 years of age, and 
it takes $1,269,105 to care for those that are sick and bury those that 
die. How is this known ? The number of deaths, the number of births, 
and the morbidity reports are filed with the State Health Department, 
and yet many physicians in Texas have never reported a birth, a death 
or a contagious disease, so these figures do not cover the entire amount. 
This is the money side of the loss. 
The orphans that are left, the homes that are wrecked is the more 
important side, for human life is worth more than money. 
A baby is worth more to the family than a pig. That is why you 
should register a baby's birth rather than a pig. A brother or sister is 
worth more than a barn full of feed, and, if an alarm is given when a 
fire occurs, preventable diseases should be reported so that the family 
may protect itself. And if you love father and mother more than you 
do the property, every death should be recorded so that preventable dis- 
eases may be located, studied and stamped out. 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 
What is meant by "pedigree? 
Why do men register their dogs, cows and hogs? 
Why do people not register their babies? 
Who should register the baby's birth? 
All of you that are registered, hold up your hands. 
What are the advantages gained by birth registration? 
Name three incidents on record where failure to be registered caused 
trouble. 
Why is it important to report contagious diseases? 
What diseases should be reported? 
What is to be gained by reporting deaths? 
To whom should deaths he reported ? 
Which is the most important, registration of births, report of dis- 
eases, or deaths? Why? 
What is the fine if a physician fails to report a contagious disease, to 
register a birth or record a death? 89 
SCHOOL SANITATION. 
(Note to teacher.) 
(If you are not capable of talking for at least thirty minutes each 
day for a week on the pictures that are shown on this chart, you have 
not had the advantage of the training that is necessary for a teacher 
to have. There is no subject more important than School Sanitation. 
You should secure a reliable book from some of your better informed 
friends and study this subject. 
As in the other talks, I shall not go into this subject thoroughly, for 
I take it that you are already alive to its importance, and that, with 
your general fund of information, you can deal with it better than a 
physician. I am calling your attention to a few fates that appear to 
the physician. I hope that you will add to this talk the teacher's side 
of the subject. 
Look at your own school grounds and find what faults should be cor- 
rected. Look well at the well or water supply. Look under the house, 
notice every particle of trash that is on the yard, see whether the build- 
ing is painted or not, whether the windows are in good repair, and if 
the roof leaks. Study the building and grounds, and call the attention 
of the pupils to those things that should be corrected. Take this les- 
son as an opportunity to start a campaign to render your school fit for 
the pupils. Teach them the lesson, and they will tell their parents. 
The public school is often the hotbed of communicable disease, and 
the teacher, of all persons in the community, is most often exposed. A 
year's salary will be little pay for you if you contract tuberculosis from 
the dust in your school room, or syphilis from a common drinking cup 
used by some of your unfortunate pupils. If, from these charts, you 
are led to study school sanitation, and are able to protect yourself as 
well as your pupils from the many risks they run, I shall be well paid 
for my work.) 
THE SURROUNDINGS. 
It is unfortunate that the child has nothing to do with the selection 
of the desk, or the arrangement of the school room. The pupil can, 
however, control the playground as to its appearance. Every pupil 
bhould take a pride in keeping the playground clean. Nothing should 
be thrown on the ground: no paper, rags or food. Food will attract 
ants and flies. Paper and trash look bad. After each week's work is 
over, a committee of pupils should look carefully over the ground and 
notice those things that are objectionable, and report them to the teacher 90 
School Sanitation 
fa P&t 
faMtiz/* flic /fast 
faM 
7%z /fayj/'ounds 
arc, nwrc unportuit tfam 
^eae^ /ar&tf 91 
at the beginning of the next week. If any boy or girl has to be pun- 
ished, he may be made to clean up or remove whatever is in the way. 
Such punishment will be of benefit to the whole school as well as to 
the boy. 
THE DESK. 
The pupil cannot select the desk, but if the seat is too high, and his 
feet do not reach the floor, he should bring a box from home to rest his 
feet on. This will allow him to sit forward so that he will not be 
forced to bend over the desk. To hang the feet, as in the picture, stops 
the flow of blood, and produces pain and restlessness so that the boy 
cannot study. To bend over the desk causes hump-back, narrows the 
chest, interferes with the breathing and leads to disease of the lungs 
and to curvature of the spine. 
THE WATER. 
Many dangers often lurk in the water supply-typhoid, dysentery and 
other diseases. To allow a puddle near the well is a, disgrace to the 
school, and to drink out of a common cup is dangerous. Under no cir- 
cumstances would you use the same toothbrush with another person. 
There is little difference in a common toothbrush and a common drink- 
ing cup. Every pupil should have his own cup. The cup should never 
be dipped into the water. 
When a child with consumption or a sore mouth or sore throat drinks 
from a cup, some of the germs of disease are left on the cup. When 
the cup is dipped in the water, these germs are turned loose to float 
into the next cup, and so all the children in the school are exposed. 
Sore throat, sore mouth, tonsilitis, diphtheria, syphilis, as well as con- 
sumption, may be contracted in this way. 
It is as nasty to drink out of a common cup as from a bucket where 
a cup has been dipped into it. Yet many people have never thought 
of it, and many schools still have the common bucket into which cups 
are dipped. At a very small expense, a barrel may be bought and a 
faucet put in the bottom of it, and in this way, for a few dollars, such 
dangers may be avoided. By writing the State Superintendent of Pub- 
lic Instruction at Austin, Texas, he will send you a booklet on how to 
secure clean, pure water for your school. He will also send you a bul- 
letin on heating and lighting and ventilation. 
LIGHTING. 
The position of the light is very important. School work requires a 
great deal of work with the eye, and a pupil should take great care of 
the eyes. The walls of the school room should be painted a color so 92 
that there will be no glare or reflection. The top of the desk should 
be painted green or black, without a gloss. The windows should be 
shaded green. While the pupil is studying, no direct light should strike 
the book. No pupil can do good work with the light in front of him. 
All openings in front of the desk should be shaded. Let the light enter 
from the side of the room. If from the back, a shadow is thrown on the 
book by the pupil's body. The left side is better, for, when the writing 
has to be done, the right hand does not shade the paper. If the pupils 
are all left-handed, let the light enter from the right side of the room. 
Hold the book where it is most comfortable to the eye. If you cannot 
read with the book 14 inches from the eye, place the book at the proper 
distance. Any child will ruin its eye by forcing the book too near or 
too far. And it is criminal for the teacher to attempt to set any 
standard for the pupils, for every eye is different. The child should be 
allowed to select the distance that suits the individual eye. 
If a child cannot read without holding the book closer than 12 inches 
to the eye, or out at a distance of more than 16 inches, there is some- 
thing wrong. See that the light in the room is in the proper place, 
and then, if not better, you should see a physician. This condition will 
not grow better, but it grows worse until the eyesight is lost. 
The heat in. the school room is a very important matter. When a 
common stove is used, the temperature near the stove is too high, while 
the parts of the room away from the stove are cold. The teacher's desk 
should always be in that part of the room farthest from the stove. 
For $7 or $8 a jacket may be placed around the stove, and an opening 
cut in the floor under the stove with box built under the floor so as to 
get the fresh air from the side of the house. Next to the floor, a hole 
may be cut in the wall so as to take out the air. If the house has a 
single wall, a box running up to the roof should be built. When a fire 
is built in the stove, the heat causes the air to rise. Look closely, and 
you will see the arrows show the direction of the air. When it comes 
out of the jacket around the stove, it circulates through the room and 
leaves at the hole near the floor. 
The State Superintendent of Public Instruction will furnish any 
child with a bulletin on ventilation who will write for it. This bulle- 
tin explains in full how any school may be heated and ventilated in the 
best manner without much cost. Every school should have a library 
of such books; they cost nothing, and are published by the State, and 
may be secured from the Educational, the Agricultural, and the Health 
Departments at Austin, Texas. Not only heating and ventilation, but 
many other subjects are covered in these books. 
THE HEAT, 93 
SWEEPING. 
In a school that has a janitor, it is of interest to the pupil to see 
that the janitor sweeps the room properly, for if the desks are covered 
with dust, and the room is not clean, the pupil suffers. Every boy and 
girl should know how a school room should be cleaned. To sweep a 
room with a dry broom is to scatter the dust, not only on the furni- 
ture and walls, but also on the inside of the desk and books. The pur- 
pose of sweeping is to get the dust out of the room, and when the room 
is swept dry the dust is not taken out but is scattered over the room. 
To take the dust from the floor, and put it in the desk, does not clean 
the room. It may clean the floor, but it makes the desk dirty. It is 
better to have the dirt on the floor than on the desk directly under the 
pupil's nose. 
It is better not to sweep at all than to sweep with a dry broom. It 
is safer not to remove the filth at all than to take it from the floor and 
place it on the pupil's desk. So, it is the duty of the pupil to object 
when in the morning he finds his desk covered with the filth that was 
taken from the floor the day before by the janitor and placed on his 
desk. This dust contains the filth that has been brought in on the 
pupils' feet, the secretions from the nose and mouth of every pupil in 
the room, besides the dirt that has blown in through the windows. It 
may contain the germs that cause consumption, diphtheria, scarlet fever, 
typhoid and many other diseases. 
To properly sweep a room at school, or at home, if there is no sweep- 
ing compound to be used, take waste paper, tear it in small bits, wet it, 
scatter it over the room and then sweep it up and burn it. It is better 
to have some disinfectant in the water that is used to moisten it. After 
the room is swept, do not take a duster and brush the dirt and dust 
from the desks off on the floor, but moisten a rag in kerosene and wipe 
the desks and furniture clean, then burn or wash the rag. If the kero- 
sene is objectionable because of its odor, add just a little oil of sassafras 
to each gallon. 
THE WATER SUPPLY. 
A well with a pump is better than an open well, but an open well 
that is kept clean is better than one that is closed. If the waste water 
is allowed to inn back into the well, all the filth that accumulates around 
the well gets into the water, and, to drink from such a well, you might 
as well drink from the puddle that is on top of the ground, for the 
water is just as clean and you will save the work of getting the water 
out. 
Look at the well on the right, and if the well at your home or at 
the school is built as this one, tell your parents or the trustees that 94 
there is no necessity for a bucket, that a puddle in the sunshine is safer 
than one at the bottom of the well. That if the air and sunshine can 
get to the water, it is purer than down in a dark, nasty well. If your 
school uses a common drinking cup or dipper, and the pupils dip into 
the bucket to get the water, it is safer to stoop down and stick the 
mouth into the water like a hog, for possibly by sticking the mouth 
into the water the germs and filth of the mouth may be allowed to set- 
tle on the bottom, but in a cup or dipper you cannot avoid the filth 
that is on the edge of the cup. 
To build a well, it should be cemented down to the solid rock so that 
no water and filth from the surface can drain into the well. The sur- 
face around the well should be elevated so that the water will not stand 
around the edge and form a puddle. The pupil should not throw water 
on the ground. A pipe should be connected with a trough or sink so 
that the waste water will be carried off and distributed over the surface 
of the ground where it may evaporate. 
The top of the well should be covered with a water and dirt-proof 
cover, so as to keep out not only dirt, but also frogs, rats and such 
animals. 
A pupil should never sit at a desk that forces him to stoop forward, 
for this position leads to a narrow chest and disease of the lungs, it 
cuts down the amount of fresh air that goes into the lungs and makes 
him dull and stupid; nor at a desk that allows his feet to hang in the 
air, for this position cuts off the blood supply of the feet, and causes 
pressure on the nerves, producing pain and restlessness, and he cannot 
study. Get a box to rest your feet on. 
A pupil should never use another's toothbrush, nor drink out of the 
other child's cup. It may cause sore throat and all those diseases that 
affect the lungs and throat. 
A pupil should have his eyes examined and glasses fitted to suit them 
if the book is held more or less than 14 inches from the eye, and should 
never read with the light in front of the body ; it will finally cause the 
loss of the sight. 
A pupil should never stay in a school room when the feet are cold 
and the face is hot. Many a girl has ruined her health and brought 
pain and suffering to herself in the years that come by staying with 
damp, wet feet in a school room. 
A pupil has a right to object to a careless, ignorant janitor who does 
not know how to clean the school room, for the dust of the school room 
contains poison that will ruin his health, wreck his body and make a 
failure of his life. 
A pupil has a right to demand pure water from a clean well, for he 
is not a pig, unless his father at home is a hog. 95 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 
How large should the school grounds be? 
Who is responsible for the appearance of the grounds? 
How may the position at the desk be corrected? 
Does your desk fit you? 
What is the result of a. misfitting desk? 
What are the diseases that may be caught from a drinking cup, or 
from a dirty well? 
Where should a pupil hold the book? 
Where should the window be? 
What is the danger of cold feet in a school room? 
Where should the teacher stand? 
How may a room be properly ventilated? 
What diseases are spread by dry sweeping? 
How should a school room be cleaned? 
How may every school secure a library on school sanitation, preven- 
tion of disease, and other subjects, free of charge? 96 
THE STAR OF HONOR 
OCIA7> 
'S' 
b 
UJ 
CL 
LU 
Qi 
CHl^y 
SELF 
/ 
/ 
Q IF 
THE BADGE OF A TEXAN 
Girl 
Boy 
Man 
Woman 
Sister 
Brother 
Father 
Mother 
As You Do 
Your 
Respect Every 97 
SOCIAL HYGIENE. 
Not every boy can be Governor of Texas, nor can every girl be the 
wife of the Governor. But every boy or girl can be a great man or 
woman; great in the place where they are; so great in fact that they 
may accomplish as much good as a Governor. Greatness is not meas- 
ured by the official position that is held, this is fame,-but greatness 
is measured by the manner in which you live toward your associates. 
No matter what a boy or girl may carry in their mind or heart, it is 
their acts toward their associates that make or form character. 
Character is developed not by thoughts, but by acts. If the window 
shades were down and the doors were closed, to those on the outside the 
house is dark and ugly, although there may be .the most brilliant lights 
inside. Pure and noble thoughts are the brilliant lights inside, but pure 
and noble acts are the elements that build character. If a person visits 
a perfume factory, in one of the rooms where the odor is extracted from 
the flower petals the doors and windows are closed so as to exclude light 
and air, and to retain the moisture and aroma. The air in such rooms 
becomes so heavily laden with this most delicate odor that when a per- 
son enters he becomes nauseated and stifled, so heavy is the air with 
the odor. So it is with the heart. When one does nothing but think 
good thoughts, his heart becomes surcharged and the person is fanatical, 
while if he will open the doors and windows and let some of the thoughts 
materialize into words and acts, then his own nature is ennobled and his 
associates are bettered. 
The music that leaves the piano, the fragrance that is thrown off by 
the flower are the results of the innermost nature of the piano, or the 
flower, and are the external manifestations of the real existence of the 
object. Every boy and girl gives forth manifestations of the inner- 
most life. If their ambition is to be great and good, they must study 
these external manifestations, so that their words and acts may better 
their associates. 
Every boy and girl should study themselves so as to curb those ele- 
ments in their nature that manifest themselves in words and acts that 
damage their associates. 
Many a boy or girl who loves his mother, in an unthought moment, 
or in a fit of anger, will say to her things that they would not utter 
before any other living creature. Life is so long that such sayings come 
back, and the pain is many times greater to the boy or girl than it was 
to the mother. 98 
RESPECT. 
Fear and respect are entirely different. If the expressions used to 
the mother were used in the school room, punishment would follow. 
If on the street to a stranger, disgrace would follow, and the boy would 
be known as rude and uncouth. Fear of disgrace or punishment is not 
respect, but is a cowardly substitute. 
Respect is a noble quality that comes from a realization that those 
with whom you associate are your equals, and are entitled to a place in 
the world as much so as yourself. Selfishness is the opposite of re- 
spect. And, if one would be respectful, they cannot be selfish. Respect 
is the very basis of manhood and womanhood. It is a cowardly thing 
for a boy or a girl to fear those outside of the home, and not to respect 
those at home. . Respect should begin at home. 
Your mother brought you into the world; she has taken care of you 
when you were a helpless baby. She has nursed you when sick; she 
has done everything in her power that you would let her do to make 
your life pleasant. And, of all your associates, you should respect her, 
and always remember that she is your mother. Her heart towards you is 
always soft and tender, and, if ever your words or acts offend her, just 
ask her pardon and kiss her once, and she'll forgive you, no matter 
what 'you have done. When you respect your mother as you should, 
then your father will not be forgotten. He has furnished you with all 
you have had. Many sacrifices that you never knew of has he made in 
order that your life may be pleasant. All the work that he has done 
was done for you and your mother. You are to bear his name, and you 
should respect him as a father. No child has ever had any grounds 
for calling its father by names that it would not call a neighbor. The 
faults that your father has are very likely the faults that you will have, 
and, instead of magnifying them so that your life will be a failure, you 
should quietly guard against them, and thus show your respect for the 
family whose name you bear. 
Sister and brother are entitled to your respect. You are equal-the 
same father, mother and home. The faults and shortcomings of one are 
the faults and shortcomings of all. Whatever the home may possess 
belongs to all alike. As a child, if you have a toy or book, it was 
given to you, and you are only responsible for keeping it. It was in- 
tended for the entire home, and is a part of the home, just as you are 
a part of the home. You should learn that everyone in the home has 
the same rights as yourself, and you should respect their rights. Many 
homes are unhappy because the children are selfish and do not realize 
that every other person in the home is entitled to the same rights as 
themselves. By words and acts, the pleasures and happiness of the 99 
home is ruined, and they find most of their pleasures at school or away 
from home. When they themselves because of the lack of respect for 
father, mother, sisters and brothers are undoing all the work that mother 
and father can do. The home should be the happiest playground for 
the child. 
When you realize that you are superior to those with whom you asso- 
ciate, because of their lack of education or family training, the nobility 
of your nature shows itself when you respect your inferiors. If you are 
really better, your superiority will be shown just to the extent that you 
respect your inferiors. You do not have to lower yourself to their level, 
nor do you have to adopt their ways of living, but a gentleman or a 
gentlewoman will act in such a manner as not to call attention to their 
inferiority. 
Every human creature, no matter what his condition of life may be, 
should be respected. Remember, that if born of such parents, and liv- 
ing in the same home, you would have been such yourself. Put your- 
self in his place, and respect him as you would wish to be respected. 
KINDNESS. 
When your nature has been developed and you have learned to re- 
spect your associates, the next step is kindness. It is impossible to be 
kind by nature without respect. You may put on a form of kindness 
and do a person a favor, but unless you possess respect, such kindness 
is hypocrisy. Respect is a flower, kindness is the perfume. Kindness 
is a result of respect. Respect alone will lead you to deport yourself so 
that your associates cannot criticise you, but kindness will make friends 
of them. If you respect others, they will respect you, but if you are 
kind to them, they will love you. Kindness is cheap. Consideration 
and sympathy are noble qualities, and show themselves in kind acts 
and words. Gentleness is a manly trait, and no greater praise may be 
given a boy than to say that he is gentle. Cruelty is a quality along 
with cowardice that leads a bov to disgrace and prison. 
There are a few of the lower animals that cannot be tamed by kind- 
ness. While the dog or the horse may not understand a word that is 
said, a gentle pat will make a friend of them, while a kick will lead 
them to attack you. If the dog or horse appreciates kindness, so much 
more do your associates. Always be kind. Look and hunt for an op- 
portunity to do some one a favor. It is not only necessary when you 
meet a. lady to remove your hat as a man should, but you should carry 
her bundle for her, or pick up her handkerchief, as a gentleman would 
do. Kindness does not necessarily mean that you should make any great 
sacrifice, for it is the little kind acts that are remembered. Respect 
leads to kindness, kindness to chivalry. 100 
CHIVALRY. 
Chivalry is one of the qualities of a gentleman, and refers particu- 
larly to the manner that a boy or man treats a girl or a woman. A 
man of refined nature will respect a woman because she is a woman, 
but he. will be chivalrous towards her because he is a gentleman. It 
makes no difference who, nor what, the woman is, if the man is a gen- 
tleman, he is chivalrous in his actions toward her. If he is coarse and 
rude, then his opinion and treatment will be rude, but if he is a gentle- 
man, his treatment will be that of a gentleman, regardless of the woman. 
Chivalry in a boy demands that he be respectful, kind and gentle, 
and that he act towards every girl and woman in such a manner that 
they will see that he possesses those qualities. The removal of the hat 
shows respect; to pick up the handkerchief is a little act of kindness, 
but the conversation that follows may prove that both were assumed 
for the purpose, and that the real genuine qualities of a gentleman are- 
lacking. The most desirable qualities for any boy to possess are re- 
spect, kindness and chivalry, based on a pure nature, and an honest 
purpose. 
PURITY. 
Purity is a broad word. It is applied to many things. We speak of 
pure air, pure food, pure water. We mean that these things are not 
mixed with other substances that interfere with their natures. Purity 
in a boy or girl means that they have not been tainted by those things 
that corrupt their better natures. A boy or girl may be corrupted by 
what they see or hear. Such impressions are mixed with their better 
nature, take a place in their minds, corrupt their hearts and lead to 
ugly acts and deeds. If a boy or girl would be pure, never listen to a 
rude or corrupt story or conversation. Never look at a corrupt picture 
nor read corrupt books. For, when such impressions enter the mind, 
the whole body becomes impure. The thoughts you think are impure, 
the words you utter are corrupt, the acts that you do are ugly, and 
the face takes on an expression that tells the whole story to every one 
you meet. You cannot hide impure thoughts from you teacher; she 
reads them in your face; nor can you hide them from your mother, she 
can see them at a glance, and your associates realize it, for before long 
those of your associates that are pure minded leave you, and all your 
friends are of a class that are impure. 
Impure thoughts not only show themselves in your face, but your 
body takes a position such that those who study the subject detect 
from your walk and posture the trend of your thoughts and the char- 
acter of your habits, and even the manner of life that you lead. You 
cannot act in a pure manner and appear to be pure when you are not.. 101 
While purity is an inner quality, it shows strongly in your life to your 
associates. You need not utter a corrupt word, nor do an impure act 
in their sight, yet they know that you are corrupt. 
Purity in a boy or girl shows just as plainly. Nothing is more beau- 
tiful than a pure face. Nothing more honorable for a boy, nothing 
more admirable in a girl, than purity. Purity in thought and action 
throws out from the boy or girl an atmosphere that cements friend- 
ship, leads' to kindness and demands respect. 
HONESTY. 
But honesty of purpose is nececssary to purity. When we speak of 
honesty, we think of money or of things of value. Dishonestly-gotten 
money will lead to punishment and misery. The State will punish 
those that are dishonest in the handling of other people's property. The 
person who is dishonest in purpose is a greater criminal than a man 
who steals. Honesty as to money matters without honesty of purpose 
is hypocrisy. Honesty or dishonesty enters into every relation that ex- 
ists between a boy or girl, and those with whom they are associated. 
The boy who is dishonest on the playground will be dishonest in after 
life. In a game of any kind, the one who cheats, robs all those play- 
ing of the pleasure. The girl who copies during a lesson injures her- 
self by failing to secure the benefits of study and learns to depend upon 
others for work she should do herself. A look, a word, or a deed may 
be dishonest. W'hen caught in a wrong, an honest boy will not evade 
the truth, even though it leads to punishment, when a lie would avoid 
punishment. 
Honesty in dealing with mother and father should be a principle of 
every child's nature. If a child will remember that they may tell 
mother and father everything, that there is not a secret of their thoughts 
or acts of nature that should not be told to mother or father, honesty 
between child and parent will follow. You should remember that you 
are living the life that your parents have lived years ago. That noth- 
ing new happens to you that has not happened to them, when they were 
of the same age, that you are a part of their existence, and that you 
belong to them. That, every temptation to you to do wrong was once 
a temptation to them. If you will remember all this, and be abso- 
lutely honest with your parents, they will advise you how to avoid such 
temptations, and overcome such wrong and grow into pure and honest 
men and women. 
Men are grown-up boys and women are grown-up girls. To the boy 
his father should he his best friend; so good a friend that the father 
should know every secret that the boy has. A boy should be a little 
man, and should he interested in his father's business, and should be a 102 
partner. Every boy should be absolutely honest, then the father can 
confide to the boy all the secrets of his business, and when the father 
quits work the boy may step into his place and start off with all the 
experience that the father has had. But, for the father to confide in 
the son, the son must confide in the father. The father's secrets are 
matters of business, his relations with other men. The son's secrets are 
■of the same nature, only smaller. No boy should make any trade of 
importance without advising with his father. His relations with his 
'boy friends should be confided to his father. When a sweetheart is 
found, no one is more interested than the /father. He can remember 
when he found his first sweetheart and how dearly he loved her. He 
can remember possibly the rude things he did, and if the son will ad- 
vise with him the father can advise the son how to avoid such rude 
acts as he was guilty of. Every child should remember that mother 
and father are still sweethearts and that love stories of their children 
are the most intensely interesting subjects to them. 
The girl who does not tell her mother all her love secrets will deprive 
her mother of her greatest pleasure in life. She will deprive herself 
of the best advice that anyone can give her. Remember that, once 
mother was just such a girl as you are. Because she is your mother, 
it is likely that your mother at your age looked like you. She had the 
same troubles and accidents, and things to happen to her that happen 
to you. She made the same mistakes that you are making. She had 
the same class of associates that you have. She once had a sweetheart 
just as you have. She was in love just as you are. Nothing new has 
occurred in your life that has not already occurred in hers. The only 
difference is that she has had her heart mellowed and her judgment 
matured by years of experience. She can see her mistakes now, and if 
the girl will be absolutely honest with her mother, many heartaches, 
many sorrows and much pain in mature life may be avoided. 
Honesty is not the best policy. It is a principle that should guide 
every boy and girl in all their associations not only with mother and 
father, but with every person. You should respect every boy, girl, man 
and woman as you do your sister, brother, father and mother. You 
should be kind and chivalrous towards your associates and friends. Your 
own life should be pure; then you can be honest in 'your dealings with 
everyone. Never say a word, to any boy or girl, man or woman, that 
you would not say to your brother, sister, father or mother. Tell your 
parents your secrets; do not confide in others. 
This star is the badge worn by the police officers. They belong to 
the executive department of the government. This star today is the 
Star of Honor, and should be the badge of every Texan. 
A policeman wearing his badge has all the authority and force of 103 
his city and State back of him. Any boy or girl wearing the Star of 
Honor, whose associations are guided by respect, kindness, chivalry, 
purity and honesty will have back of them the force of a moral char- 
acter and clear conscience. Not only the force of their own character, 
but that of parents and associates. 
Respect for the rights of others, purity of heart, chivalry and kind- 
ness in word and act, and honesty in all dealings, make right, and any 
boy or girl whose relations with their associates and friends are guided 
by these five cardinal principles will, in all things, be right. 
But what has this to do with the prevention of disease ? 
Fat men are not always jolly, but jolly men are always healthy. 
Laughter and merriment increase digestion; pleasure and joy build up 
the vitality. Without these five cardinal virtues there can be no pleas- 
ure, except a beastly pleasure, such as the lower animals enjoy. There 
is no honor or honesty among thieves, no real pleasure among those 
that are impure, and dishonest and without pleasure, joy and peace the 
organs cannot properly perform their functions. 
There is no brace that will make the boy or girl stand erect quicker 
than a clear conscience. There is no drug that will give luster to the 
eye, no massage that will remove wrinkles from the face, no tonic that 
will make life a pleasure quicker than purity and honesty. 
Which is the prettiest chart? 
What is meant by social hygiene? 
What are the five cardinal points of the Star of Honor? 
What is Respect? Purity? Honesty? Kindness? Chivalry? 
Which of these show plainest in the expression of the face? 
Why will a gentleman respect any woman? 
Is purity as necessary in the boy as in the girl? 
What secrets should a boy tell his parents, and why? 
Why is kindness to an inferior a better quality than kindness to a 
superior ? 
Is every girl entitled to respect? 
Have you the right to say anything to anyone that you would not 
say to one of your own family? 
If you do not respect the other girl's sister or mother, have you the 
right to expect your sister or mother to be respected? 
Does disgrace of a boy or girl affect the others of the family? 
What is the Star of Honor? Why should the Star of Honor be the 
Badge of a Texan? 
What is the Golden Rule of social hygiene? 
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.