The wine cup is always dangerous; the water cup may be if we permit it. An article by Alvin Davison, Professor of Biology in Lafayette College, in Good Health for November, shows that tremendous danger lurks—"waits" is perhaps the better word—on the rim and in the very depths of the water cup. One object of the article is to show the necessity of sanitary science in prolonging life, in preventing disease; and the utterly unhygienic and almost criminal carelessness in ordinary drinking, offers a strong argument for the preventive side.
How often it is assumed that as soon as a child is able to get out-of-doors after an attack of scarlet fever or diphtheria all danger is over. But the cut on this page, reproduced from Good Health, shows very clearly that diphtheria germs may be found in the mouth several weeks after recovery, and might infect others by the medium of the common drinking-cup. Look at the swarming bacteria from a drinking-cup, from a space so small that it seems almost invisible. In an experiment three clean sterile glasses filled with sterile water, each used only once by a child, were found to be fruitful of germs. All bore bits of dead skin; one had on its brim approximately 13,000 bacteria; another, 20,000; the third, 28,000. A glass used nine days at a school, bore on its brim not less than 5,000,000 germs, while other millions nested deeper down where saliva had fallen. "Hundreds of dead particles of human skin decaying on the sides of the cup made it a veritable human cemetery." The professor says, "I believe that nine out of ten public cups bear some kind of pathogenic [disease] germs." A guinea-pig inoculated by the germs from one cup died in two days, of pneumonia; inoculation from another cup produced tuberculosis; another, inflammation of the lungs; 37½ per cent of cups examined bore tuberculosis germs. Whole families nearly have become infected with tuberculosis from drinking-cups used by one afflicted with the disease. Measles, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other unamiable diseases lie hidden in the public drinking-cup. The lesson is, abolish, prohibit, as a deadly enemy, the drinking-cup used by the public or family.
Pope Pius and Cardinal Merry del Val. There are serious problems troubling the Papacy just now, in Portugal, in France, in Spain, in Italy. See article on page 9, and notes elsewhere.
