Do not wet your fingers with spit when you deal cards or turn over pages of books or magazines.

Keep the teeth brushed and the mouth clean. Have decayed teeth repaired at once. Decayed teeth drop out and they cause abscesses, which may destroy the jaw bone or cause brain fever. Old snags give the stomach the germs of rotting, which cause dyspepsia.

Diseases Caught by Touching the Germs

=1463. The more common diseases.= The following are some of the more common diseases caught by touching the germs: Ringworm, mange, barber's itch, sore eyes, boils, carbuncles, lockjaw, small pox, chancroid, syphilis, and gonorrhoea (clap).

=1464. Ringworm, mange, and barber's itch.= These diseases are carried from person to person by finger nails and hands and from dirty water to those who bathe in it or have their underwear washed in it.

=1465. Lockjaw.= The germs of lockjaw are found in manure and in soil fertilized with it; hence, a bullet which pa.s.ses through such soil before wounding carries these germs into the wound. Any wound soiled with such dirt will be infected. Also, wounds made by toy pistols and fire-crackers often contain lockjaw germs.

=1466. Chancroid, syphilis, and gonorrhoea (clap).= These are diseases whose germs are usually caught from prost.i.tutes and wh.o.r.es, or from husbands who have caught the germs from prost.i.tutes and wh.o.r.es. They are called "Venereal diseases," after Venus, the Roman G.o.ddess of l.u.s.tful love, but they are very often caught in other ways than in s.e.xual intercourse, and by innocent persons.

=The chancroid plant= causes a very nasty sore, the _chancroid_, which often destroys much flesh and causes buboes. The germ can be carried on the fingers to any part of the body. When the chancroid is healed and the bubo becomes a scar the disease is cured.

The _syphilis_ germ will grow first where it is rubbed in, causing a hard ulcer, called a chancre, and after that it travels through the entire body. No place is sacred to its destructive power and it lives as long as the patient does. It is the cause of much insanity, palsy, apoplexy, deafness, blindness and early death. In mothers it causes miscarriages and in children it causes stillbirths, freaks, deformities, feeble minds and idiots; also, deaf and dumb, palsied, stunted, sickly and criminal conditions.

A syphilitic person is always dangerous although apparently well. He often has a sore mouth and his spit is as dangerous as that of a mad dog. The bite of such a man will develop a chancre and any pipe, cup, or tooth pick which he uses, or his kiss, will give syphilis. A syphilitic tattooer who wets his needles and his India ink with spit will put a chancre into the skin with the picture.

The instruments of cheap advertising dentists and of quack doctors or ignorant nurses can carry these germs from one person to another. So can the razors and caustic stick of barbers who are careless.

=The clap plant= likes to grow in the linings of the openings of the body where it is dark and warm and moist where it causes a catarrhal discharge called _clap_, which is easily smeared on hands, towels, handkerchiefs or by actual contact.

It grows well in the eyelids, causing great damage and often blindness. Many babies get the clap plant into the eyes during birth, from the mother, and unless treated within a few minutes after birth, have sore eyes and go blind,--a terrible calamity to the child and the family. If you have clap the germs can be carried on your hands to your eyes.

The clap plant also grows well in the cavities of the joints, causing rheumatism and crippling; it grows in the heart, causing valvular heart disease, which is incurable, and also in the generative organs of men and women, causing self-made eunuchs and childless wives. It is the cause of most of the severe abdominal diseases of women requiring the use of the knife to cut out the diseased part.

The venereal diseases cause more misery than any others and most of the doctors would have to go into other professions to earn their living if these diseases did not exist.

When a young man is "sowing his wild oats" he is really planting in his own body the syphilis and clap plants, and the harvest will be greater than any other crop. He will reap it in days of bedridden misery, and possible sudden death. He will reap it in bitter hours by the bedside through the illness and death of his wife or in her long years of ill health. He will reap it in little white coffins, idiot babies; blind, deaf and dumb, sickly and stunted children. And it will cost him lost wages and hospital and doctor fees.

Yes, the wild oats crop is a b.u.mper crop. King Solomon was wise when he warned his son against the harlot, "for her end is bitter."

The best way to avoid venereal diseases is to keep away from lewd women, and live a clean moral life. It is said by medical authorities that s.e.xual intercourse is not necessary to preserve health and manly vigor, and that the natural s.e.xual impulse can be kept under control by avoiding a.s.sociations, conversations, and thoughts of a lewd character. However, persons who will not exercise self-control in this matter can greatly lessen the risks of indulgence by the prompt use, immediately upon return to camp or garrison, of the prophylaxis prescribed by War Department orders and which all soldiers are required to take after exposing themselves to the danger of venereal infection. Men who immediately after intercourse urinate and wash the private parts thoroughly with soap and water will lessen the chances of infection. Drunkenness greatly increases the risk of infection.

Should one be so unfortunate as to contract venereal disease, he should see a first-cla.s.s, reputable physician AT ONCE, the sooner the better. It is a fatal mistake to try to conceal venereal disease by not seeing a doctor, he who does so is taking a most dangerous chance of ruining himself physically for life.

=1467. How to avoid diseases caught by touching the germs.= Keep your skin clean with soap and water.

Do not bathe or wash your clothes in dirty water, have them boiled when laundered.

Do not go barefoot, even in barracks.

Do not use towels or toilet articles of other people, especially in public wash-rooms unless they furnish a fresh towel for you. Do not sleep in houses left empty by the enemy unless ordered to do so.

Do not sleep in native shacks in the tropics.

Do not rub the eyes with dirty hands. When dirt gets in have a doctor get it out.

If you have clap, do not rub your eyes with your hands, and wash your hands well with soap and water after taking treatment or pa.s.sing water.

Do not handle dogs or cats, especially strange or sickly ones.

Do not clean the ears with sticks or straws,--have a doctor do it for you.

Do not have cheap, advertising dentists fix your teeth. Have the army dentist fix them and see him at least once every six months,--or see a good civilian dentist.

Do not have pictures tattooed on your skin.

Do not smoke other men's pipes.

Do not handle or touch wounds with anything but a first aid package.

Beware of chipped drinking gla.s.ses in cafes, restaurants and other places. The slightest cut from such a gla.s.s whoso clipped part has been in contact with the mouth of a syphilitic person will give you syphilis.

Seek good companions like your mother and sister. Keep away from John Barleycorn. He always wants to turn you over to a harlot.

Wh.o.r.es and prost.i.tutes are all diseased and will give you germs that will live to give diseases to you, your wife and your children, forty years from now. Keep away from them.

Diseases Caught from Biting Insects

=1468. The more common diseases.= The following are some of the more common diseases caught from the bites of certain insects: Malaria, yellow fever, and dengue fever.

The germs of malaria, yellow fever and dengue fever live in the blood, and are sucked up into the blood by mosquitoes when they bite.

Malaria germs, however, will develop only in the mosquito called, _Anopheles_.

Yellow fever germs will develop only in the mosquito called, _Stegomyia_.

Dengue fever germs will develop in the mosquito called _Culex_ and in _Anopheles_.

After a period of development in these mosquitoes the germs will find their way to the spit glands, and are injected into the person whom the mosquito bites. (Note. Male mosquitoes cannot bite.)

_Absolutely the only way that malaria, yellow and dengue fevers can possibly be caught is from mosquitoes._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 8

_The malaria mosquito_

(She stands on her head)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 9

_Culex the mosquito_

(She is humpbacked)]