a deadly curse. Spit often
contains the seeds of death. Women's skirts and the soles of our shoes
carry it into the houses. It becomes dry, but the germs live and float
about in the dust, then enter the mouth to make us sick. Carelessness
with spit is said to cause more than a hundred deaths every day in our
land.

=Do not use an Open Spittoon.=--It is much safer to have a smallpox
patient in the house than an open spittoon in the summer. You can
prevent the smallpox by vaccination, but you cannot keep the flies
from carrying ten thousand germs of death from the spittoon to the
food on the table. A million germs have been found on a single fly.

[Illustration: FIG. 60.--Photograph of a house fly on a piece of bread.
This fly had been feeding on spit and a study of its legs and body
showed more germs present than there are hairs on a person's head.]

Spit should be dropped into a cup which should be kept covered when
not being used. The spit should be destroyed by fire or some
germ-killing fluid, such as lye or formalin.

[Illustration: FIG. 61.--An exact drawing of the germs in a spot as
large as a period, on the edge of a drinking cup.]

=Keeping Sickness away from the Throat and Lungs.=--All sickness of
the throat and lungs is caught from some one else. The germs are
passed from one to another on the drinking cup, by sucking pencils,
wetting the finger to turn the pages of a book, or putting the fingers
in the nose or mouth.

[Illustration: FIG. 62.--A dish of beef broth jelly left open two
minutes in a room being swept. Each spot is a city of thousands of
germs which grew from one germ dropping on the jelly. By counting the
spots you can tell how many germs fell from the dust on this dish
three inches in diameter.]

_Dust is the partner of disease._ It contains germs. Avoid dust. Wipe
up the rooms with a damp cloth; never use a feather duster. Avoid dry
sweeping. Use a suction cleaner or have rugs which can be cleaned out
of doors.

Give the lungs fresh air and deep breathing and the body good food and
plenty of sleep to make it so strong that germs cannot overcome it
when they enter.

[Illustration: FIG. 63.--Photograph of consumption germs, the tiny
rods which often grow and cause tuberculosis in bodies weakened by
beer or whisky. Much enlarged.]

=Alcoholic Drink and the Lungs.=--The most common disease of the lungs
is _tuberculosis_. Nearly all bartenders who sell strong drink take
some themselves.