Diseases Transmitted Through Public Baths
THE Journal of the American Medical Association says: “It may seem like an incongruity to speak of the hygienic dangers lurking in the public bath. The growing popularity of swimming pools has led to an increased interest in their sanitary condition. There is no longer any doubt that they can actually transmit disease. . . . Typhoid fever and diarrheal conditions have been traced to swimming pools in colleges and universities, secondary and elementary schools, gymnasiums, clubs, steamships, and special bathing establishments.” In the olden days, when an individual was born, lived, and died in a little neighborhood, there was not the opportunity that modern travel presents for spreading diseases. But to-day an individual may become afflicted with an infectious or contagious disease, and travel extensively; and as he travels, he leaves the germs of his malady in all the public institutions that he visits. Conditions in this respect are very different from what they were a hundred years ago; and therefore those who really care to preserve their health need to be much more particular than ever before.