ables. From water we get
typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, and many other parasitic diseases.
From our food we likewise contract dangerous maladies such as tapeworms
from uncooked meats and fish and the deadly trichina from raw hog meat.
With decomposed breads we take the poisons that produce pellagra,
kak-ke, ergotism and acrodinia. From uncooked fruits and vegetables we
get dysentery, typhoid fever, cholera, and parasitic diseases. Spoiled
beans give us the deadly lathyrismus. From decomposed meat and fish we
get ptomaine poisoning. Mosquitoes convey to us malaria, yellow fever and
a parasite known as the filaria. The dreaded sleeping-sickness of Africa
comes through the bites of a small fly; the bedbug is believed to be the
means of conveying a frightful disease known as kala-azar, and the
house-fly often brings to us the germs that produce typhoid fever,
dysentery, and probably other diseases as well.

The bubonic plague, which is one of the most frightful diseases known, is
conveyed to man by the rat and mouse.[1] Hydrophobia is usually
contracted from the bite of the dog, and it is a well-known fact that
this animal often harbors a minute tapeworm, a single egg of which, when
swallowed by the human being, is often followed by death. Both dogs and
cats probably convey diphtheria, and both unquestionably often have
within their intestinal tracts tapeworms that occasionally infect
children. With the exception of the rare disease known as glanders, the
horse is not believed to be directly responsible for any of the maladies
from which the human being suffers, but it is well established that fully
95 per cent. of house-flies hatch in the manure of these animals, and
they, therefore, become indirectly responsible for some of the most
serious diseases affecting the human being. It is thus seen that almost
every object with which man comes in intimate contact is capable of
conveying to him the poison of one or more diseases. If it were possible
for us to separate ourselves completely from everything with which we are
ordinarily associated there can be no question that the span of human
life would be greatly increased, and that death from bacterial and
parasitic diseases generally would no longer occur. All this is said not
with the object of startling the reader, but to warn him of the dangers
that surround him on every hand, and to urge a recognition of that which
can so materially prolong his life. Fortunately these sou