The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-30
COMMUNION CUP DANGER
THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH
CALLS ATTENTION TO 1T.
Wants Individual ChaIices Used-Re-
suit of Some Experiments
Made by Doctors.

The State Board of Health finds another
menace to the health Of the communities
in the communion cup, and recommends the
use of individual cups. 1t also recommends
that the practice of using cups in common
in the public schools be stopped.
What do you advise in regard to the
adoption of individual communion cups?'
This is a frequent question of late at the
office of the State Board OF Health" says
the board in it's statement. "Those VINO
use common communion cup would not
think of Offering a guest a previously used
drinking glass or cup without thoroughly
cleansing the same. Why do in church
what is considered uncleanly at home? The
uncleanliness of the common communion
cup is matter of common sense. The pos
sible and occasionally probable transmits
sion of disease by this means has been
recognized by physicians and by intelligent
and thoughtful people generally Dr
Charles Forbes, of the United States Ma
rine Hospital Service, reports having found
in the dregs of a communion cup after the
mouth and clothing. From the former
epithelaS cells, mucuS and various bac-
terra and spores; from the latter, hbrous
material and dirt particles. The unused
wine was clean and practically sterile Drs.
AnderS and Furbush, of Philadelphia, found
tubercle bacilli in two out OF five specl-
munion cup, besides some pus staphy To-
cocci, pus and oral epithelium. Such facts
and their Inference show the probable dan
gers of disease transmission, and the vital
and far-reaching Importance of using in
dividual cups. Dr. Anders asks: Who Will
say that many an innocent person may not
have acquired disease from the common
communion cup? Among the diseases which
may be carried from mouth to mouth by a
communion cup are syphilis, cancer, tuber-
culosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, influenza
tonsilits and whooping cough. Many
mouths are not only unclean, but are in
an unhealthy condition; Ask your dentist
for information. He will tell you about how
he every day sees neglected teeth, vitiated
oral secretons, diseased gums, alreolar alb
scesses and pyorrhoea.
refined sentiment that is willing to swallow
the breath-blown, saliva-tained, mustache-
dipped, and often tobacco-fOuled wine of a
cup that has passed the lips of fifty or one
hundred or more good people? 1t is not
hyper-fastidiousness which causes clean
people to abhor common drinking vessel
Moses. that prince of health officers, would
probably not have sanctioned the common
communion cup. Progressive clergymen
have argued against 1T as being opposed to
common courtesy, good manners, clean
Illness, healthfulness, decency, and con-
venience well as scriptural and early
''The probability of infection proceeding
from the common communion cup is very
likely much less than from common cups
fountains and schools. Yet 1t is appropriate
that the church, in its work Of Christian
beneficence, should be a leader in the ap-
pHcaton of sanitary science. A prominent
teacher of hygiene says: One needs but
to see an individual communion outfit in
practical use to believe in it. 1t is beautiful,
simple, Clearly, sanitary, easily worked and
handled by both pastor and people, adds
harmony, dignity, impreSSiveneSS and deVo-
ton to the service The individual cups are
made of silver, aluminium or glass. They
range from one and one-half to two inches
in height are made with heavy bases about
he of an in toward
which the sides taper in either straight or
gently curved lines from the tops, which
are from one to one and one-fourth inches
in diameter, so they are somewhat beaker-
shaped; while others again may be shorter
with handles like small tea cups or even
oblet-shaped. The cups, holding about one
ounce, are served on hard wood, lacquered
holding from forty to sixty cups; the rack
may have two or three tiers of twenty cups
each set in shallow, round openings; covers
to exclude dust may be raised and lowered
over the cups. Wherever individual com
murion cups have been adopted, the teSti-
mony of pastor and people have been ex-
pressive of the utmost satisfaction. They
would not be persuaded to return to the old
method One pastor writes that he has
found that the sanitary safety of the in
dividual chalice appeals to the intelligence,
removes all the objections of the sensitive
and makes the service of the Lords supper
more largely attended,
EVERY sanitary principle forbids the COM
mon communion cup, therefore the Indiana
State Board of Health earnestly recon-
mends it's abolition. 1t also recommends the
abolition of the common drinking cup at
schools and advises travellers to carry in
diyidual cups with them.