off, or the soil is of a character that permits rapid absorption,
throwing slops on the ground around the house may not constitute a danger
to the inmates, but nothing is more certain than that the old fashioned
privy is a dire menace to the health of all those in its vicinity.

Not only are infectious materials brought into houses by flies, from
fecal matter and other excretions, but they are carried away by the
rains and sometimes contaminate sources of water-supply. It is
furthermore extremely probable that bacteria in particles of dust from
dried fecal material may be carried by the winds from privies into wells
and houses, and as a consequence diseases may be spread; of perhaps still
more importance--and certainly of far greater moment all over the
southern portions of the country--is the fact that hook-worm disease and
other infections caused by animal parasites are transmitted from man to
man as the result of our adherence to the old fashioned privy.

As will be explained in the chapter devoted to the common communicable
diseases, the eggs of the hook-worm pass from the intestine along with
the feces of those who are victims of this parasite and reaching the
ground, hatch out in the course of a few days minute hook-worm embryos,
which crawl away and permeate the soil in the vicinity; later collecting
in little pools that form after rains, or in dew-drops during the night,
they attach themselves to the skin of barefooted children who come in
contact with such collections of water, and boring into the body
ultimately, through a circuitous route, reach the intestines. Here they
undergo further development, and in a short time become mature
hook-worms, which in their turn lay eggs, and the life cycle begins over
again. It is thus seen that a child having hook-worm disease becomes a
menace, on account of the privy, to its brothers and sisters, and of
course quite commonly receives back into its own body, worms that had
previously escaped as eggs.

In the same way eggs of the two common tapeworms pass out with the feces,
and the offal containing them being eaten by hogs in the one case, or
being scattered in the vicinity and taken in with grass by cows in the
other, have their shells dissolved off as soon as they reach the stomachs
of these animals, and there are liberated small embryos that bore through
the walls of the stomach and later find their way into the muscular
tissues of these beasts, and there lie dormant