Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1875-02-18
Don't Kiss the Baby.

The promiscuous kissing of children is a
pestilent practice. We use the word advised
ly, and it is mild for the occasion. Murder
Gus would be the proper word did the kissers
know the mischief they do. Yes, madam,
mu'derous; and we are speaking to you. Do
you remember calling on your dear friend
Mrs. Brown the other day with strip of
flannel around your neck? And when little
Flora came dancing into the room, didn't
you pounce upon her demonstratively, call
her precious little pet, and kiss her? Then
you serenely proceed 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 strychnine or arsenic.
Your caresses were fatal.
Two or three days after, the little pet began
to complain of sore throat too. The symp-
toms grew rapidly alarming; and when the
doctor came the single word dipt1te'i0 suficed
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 in
strumentality in her bereavement. She charges
it to mysterious Providence The doctor
says nothing to desturb the delusion; that
would be impolitic, if not cruel; but to an
outsider he is free to say that the childs death
was due directly to your Internal stupidity.
Those are precisely his words forcible
than elegant, it is true but who shall say,
under the circumstances, that they are not
justifable? Remember
Evil is wrought by want of thought
AS well as by want of heart"
II uyo,111 ho ho r6 IN toll lOuJ rnuoh of 40
prevalent sickness and mortality from Dip
liberia is due to such want of thought. AS q
rule, adults have the disease in so mild form
that they mistake it for a 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 established fact
that diptheria is usually if not always COM
municated by the direct transplanting of the
malignant vegetation which causes the dis
ease, the fact that there can be no more GER
tain means of brining the contagiOn to its ia
vorite soil than the act of kissing, and the
further fact that the custom of kissing child
rem on all occasions is all but universal, it is
not surprising that, when the disease is once
imported into community, it is very likely
to become epidemic.
1t would be absurd to charge the spread of
diptheria entirely to the practice of child
kissing. There are other modes of propaga-
ton, yet it is hard to conceive of any more
dirsctly suited to the spreak of the infection
or more general in its operation. 1t stands
to diptheria in about the same relation that
promiscuous hand-shaking formerly did to
the itch.
1t were better to avoid the practice. The
children will not suffer if they go unkissed );
and their friends ought for their sake to fore
60 the luxury for season. A single kiss
has been known to infect a family; and the
most careful may be in condition to communi-
cate the disease without knowing it. Beware,
then, of playing Judas, and let the babies
alone.