Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-08-20
DON'T KISS MY BABY.
That Is What Every Mother Should S
to Her GuahinR Frionda

That Is what Every Mother Should Say
to Her Cushing Friends.
The promiscuous kissing of children
is pestlent practice, writes phVsi-
clan in the Old Homestead We use the
word advisedly, and 1t is mild for the
occasion. Murderous would be the
proper word, did the kissers know the
mischief they do. Do you remem-
Der calling on your dear friend, Mrs.
Brown, the other day, with a strip of
flannel around Your neck? And when
little Flora came dancing into the room,
didn't you pounce upon her demon
stratively, call her precious little pet,
ceeded to describe the dreadful sore
throat that kept you from prayer-meet-
ing the night before. You had no de-
signs on the dear child's life, we know;
nevertheless you killed herl Killed her
as surely as If you had fed her with
strychnine or arsenic.
Your carelessness was fatal. Two or
three days after the little pet began to
complain of a sore throat too. The
symptoms grew rapidly alarming, and
when the doctor came the simple word
diphtheria explained them all. To-day
little mound is the sole memento of
your visit. OF course the mother did
not suspect, and would not dare to sus-
pect you OF any instrumentality in her
bereavement. She charges it to mys-
terious providence. The doctor says
nothing to disturb the delusion-that
would be impolitic If not cruel-but to
an outsider he is free to say that the
30
| stupidity. Those are precisely his
words; aud yho shall say, under the cir
cumstaDces, that they are not justifi-
able?
1t would be hard to tell how much Of
the prevalent illness and mortality
| from diphtheria is due to such want Of
thought AS rule adults have the
disease in so mild form that thew mis-
take it for a simple cold, and as cold Is
not contagious, they think not of eX-
posing others to their breath or the
greater dangerof labial contact. Taking
into consideration the well-established
fact that diphtheria is usually, If not al
ways, communicated by direct trans
planting OF the malignant vegetation
which causes the disease, the fact that
| GucTo Gdn Oc AlO bdAA huCaho Va
bringing the contagion to IT'S fsVorite
soil than the act of kissing, and the
further fact that the kissing of children
on all occasions is All but universal, II
is not surprising that, when the disease
is once imported into community, 1T Is
very likely to become epidemic.
1t would be absurd to charge the
spread of diphteria entirely to the prae
tice of child-kissing. There are Other
n 9des of propagation, though 1T is hard
to conceive Of any more directly suited
to the spread OF the infection or more
general in its operation. 1t stands tc
diphtheria in about the same relation thai
promiscuous hand-shaking forneriy &c
to the itch. 1t were better to avoid thf
practice. The children will not snffel
il they go unkissed, and their friends
ought for their sake to forego the luxury
for a season. A single kiss has beer
known to infect family, and the most
careful may be in a condition to com
municate the disease without knowing
it. Beware then Of pl laying Judas. and
let the babies alone.