Expectoration

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 15, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 27.

Expectoration.—Dr. Paul Gibier, a high scientific authority, says: "If this habit of expectoration in public places could be stopped, I am sure that in time tuberculosis would die out altogether. This seems a very sweeping statement, but it is not an ill-considered one. There is no question in my mind that the spread of tuberculosis is due largely to the habit of spitting. A great many people have tuberculosis without being aware of the fact. They do not know of the danger that comes from ejecting their sputum where it becomes dry and pulverized and then flies about in minute particles to be inhaled by healthy persons, who are thus inoculated with the disease. This random public expectoration is a crime." What is worse still is the habit of spitting upon floors and carpets. Good people do it, but why? why? Some germs die in the bright sunlight much sooner than in the shade.