Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1875-04-28
Don't Kiss the Baby.

-
is, says the Scientific American, pesti-
lent practice. We use the word ad-
visedly, and it is mild for the occasion.
Murderous would be the proper word,
did the kissers know the mischief they
do. Yes, madame, murderous; and we
are speaking to you. Do you remem-
Der calling on your dear friend Mrs.
Brown the other day, with a strip of
flannel round your neck? And when
little Flora came dancing into the
room, didn't you pounce upon her
demonstratively, call her a precious lit
tie pet, and kiss her? Then you
serenely proceeded to describe the
dreadful sore throat that kept you from
prayer meeting the night before. You
had NO designs on the dear child S
life, we know; nevertheless you
killed her! Killed her as surely
as if you had fed her with strych-
nine or arsenic. Your caresses were fa-
tai. Two or three days after the little
pet began to complain of sore throat,
too. The symptoms grew rapidly alarm
ing, and when the doctor came the SIM
pie word diptheria sufficed to explain
them all. To day little mound in
Greenwood is the sole memento of your
visit Of course the mother does not
suspect, and would not dare to suspect,
you of any instrumentality in her be-
reavement. She charges it to a mystic
rious Providence. The doctor says
nothing to disturb the allusion; that
would be impolitic, if not cruel; out to
an outsider he is free to say that the
child's death was due directly to your
Internal stupidity. Those are precisely
his words; more torcible than elegant,
it is true; but who shall say, under the
circumstances, that they are not justifa-
BILE Remember
Evil is wrought by want of thought
AS well as by want Of heart.
1t would be hard to tell how much of
the prevalent sickness and mortality
from diphtheria is due to such want of
thought. AS a rule, adults have the
disease in so mild form that they mis-
take it for simple cold, and as cold is
not contagious, they think nothing of
exposing others to their breath, or to
the greater danger Of labial contact.
Taking into consideration the well-es-
tablished fact that diphtheria is usually,
if not always, communicated by t. e
direct transplanting of the malignant
vegetation which causes the disease, the
fact that there can be no more certain
means of bringing the contagion to it's
favorite soil than the act of kissing, and
the further fact that the custom of
kissing children on all occasions is
all but universal, it is not sur
prising that, when the disease is once
imported into community, it is very
likely to become epidemic. It would
be absurd to charge the spread of diph-
liberia entirely to the practice of child
kissing. There are other modes Of
propagation, thouh it is hard to conceive
any more directly suited to the spread
Of the infection or more general in its
operation. It stands to diptheria in
about the same relation that promis-
cuous Misunderstanding formerly did to the
itch. It were better to avoid the prac-
tice. The children will not suffer if
they go unkissed; and their friends
ought for their sake to forego the luxury
for season. A single kiss has been
known to infect a family; and the most
careful may be in condition to COM
municate the disc lse without knowing
it. Beware then of playing Judas, and
let the babies alone.