e lessons, illustrating practically the
proper methods of cleaning a room, much may be done to enlist school
children in the battle against germs. Through the enthusiasm of the
children as well as through visits to the homes parents may be
instructed as to the danger of letting well children sleep with sick
children; the wisdom of vaccination to prevent smallpox, of antitoxin
to prevent serious diphtheria, of tuberculin tests to settle the
question whether tuberculosis is present; why anything that gathers
dust is dangerous unless cleansed and aired properly; and why bedding,
furniture, floor coverings, and curtains that can be cleansed and aired
are more beautiful and more safe than carpets, feather beds,
upholstery, and curtains that are spoiled by water and sunshine; how to
care for the tuberculous member of the family, etc. Anti-social acts
may be prevented, such as carrying an infected child to the doctor in a
public conveyance, thereby infecting numberless other people; sending
infected linen to a common laundry; mailing a letter written by an
infected person without first disinfecting it; sending a child with
diphtheria to the store; returning to the dairy unscalded milk bottles
from a sick room.

The daily inspection of school children for contagious diseases by the
school physician has, where tried, been found to reduce considerably
the amount of sickness in a town. Such inspection should be universally
adopted. Moreover, the teacher should be conversant with the early
symptoms of these diseases so that on the slightest suspicion the child
may be sent home without waiting for the physician's call. Like the
little girl who never stuttered except when she talked, school children
and school-teachers are rarely frightened until too late to prevent
trouble. The "easy" diseases such as measles, whooping cough, etc.,
cost our communities more than the more terrible diseases like typhoid
and smallpox. During one typical week ending May 18, 630 new cases of
measles were reported to one department of health. Obviously the
nineteen deaths reported give no conception of the suffering, the cost,
the anxiety caused by this preventable disease. The same may be said
of diphtheria and croup, of which only thirty-two deaths are reported,
but 306 cases of sickness. Yet no one to-day will send a child to sleep
with a playmate so as to catch diphtheria and "be done with it."

The most strategic point of attack is almost universall