p. 5 | The Public Drinking Cup

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 10, 1910

The Public Drinking Cup

THIS little story makes significant reading. It was told by a physician out of his personal experience. “A man came and consulted me for a severe sore mouth and throat. I examined him, and discovered a number of patches on his lips, tongue, and throat, indicating that

he had a certain unmentionable disease. He admitted having the disease. I warned him to use a private drinking cup, and under no circumstances to use a public drinking cup. A half-hour later I was surprised and disgusted to see him drinking from the common drinking cup at the hotel where I was stopping.”

This second story is told by the same doctor: “While on a train last summer, I was called by the conductor to prescribe for an unfortunate person who was in the last stages of tuberculosis. Some friends had assisted him to the train, and he was going to a sanatorium. He became exhausted and fainted. He previously expectorated freely, and when he recovered from his spell, a sympathetic lady gave him a drink from the public drinking cup on the train!”

Is it exaggeration when we say that the public drinking cup is one of the gravest dangers we face to-day?—Ladies’ Home Journal.