Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-05-09
new PERIL TO EYEsIGH1
Hot Towels In Barber Shops
Breed Microbes.
REFUSE THE FACE TURKISH BATH.

Prominent Young st. Louis Lawyers
Narro Escape From Blindness.
Physicians Sound Il Warming Cry
Against u Recent Western Innova-
ton Which Has Proved Dangerous.
1t %behooveth men who get shaved in
public places to write down a new
'don't" in their "don't books" if they
wish to reserve their eyesigbt. A fresh
microbe is abroad in the land. He lives
in the towels which some BARRIERS lay
across the eyes of the men who get
shaved in public places.
He is a hardy microbe, who is not in
convenienced by hot water. He trans
plants himself from the towel to the
eyes of man and sets up a terrible state
of things in quick order.
Within the past few weeks many men
in st. Louis have come to o~culists with
eyes in which a virulent irritation had
been set up. When they were ques-
toned, all of them said they had been
p%atronizing barber shops where the Gus
tom obtains Of giving the upper part Of
the face a sort Of Turkish bath by means
of a towel which has been dipped in
hot water.
The condition was almost identical in
each case, an infection go pronounced
that a film began forming over the pu-
pill and pus was exuded, and the de.
struction Of the sight was imminent.
There is now at the Baptist santa
rum a young lawyer and politician from
the east who came perhaps nearer than
anybody else to losing his eyesight. The
young man has been passing the holt
days in st. Louis visiting friends. The
other day his right eye began troubling
him. He supposed something had lodged
in it which would wash out and the in
f1ammation would subside.
But the irritation became more in
tense as the day passed. He had engaged
to accompany a young lady to the Phil
harmonic Symphony society concert in
the evening. In spite of the severest
suffering he called at her home to keep
the engagement.
The young lady suggested that he 60
to see a doctor whose residence was
next door. He did so, and the doctor
examined the eye carefully. "There ia
no foreign substance in your eye," he
said. sit has become infected in some
mi l advise that you consult a
specialist without delay"
Instead of going with him to the con-
cert the young lady accompanied him
to the Office Of a we'll known ooulist
near Beaumont street and Washington
avenue. The specialist said: "You are
in great danger of losing your eyesight.
Prompt and thorough treatment is nee
essary to save it. An operation may be
necessary. You will have to 60 imme-
diately to the Baptist sanitarium.
The doctor dismissed his other pa
TENTS, and entering the carriage in
which the young man had come ao-
oompanied him to the sanitarium. 1t
was a bit unusual for a man to go to a
hospital in evening dress and high hat,
but his sight was more precious to him
than a precise regard for the fitness Of
raiment.
An operation was not necessary, but
the use of the knife could not have in
fioted more acute pain. The eyeball
was swabbed and scraped and cleansed
and packed and the young man says,
with a shudder, be thinks it was sand
papered and ohiseled. The left eye was
subjected to like heroic treatment as a
precautionary measure, and for "a
hours the young man was in anxious,
bandaged darkness.
When the bandages were removed by
the surgeon, a hopeful exclamation es-
capped him. He feels confident now
there will be no i'll effects, but if surgi-
cal interposition had been delayed a
few hours longer the sight Of II and
possibly both eyes would have been de-
stroyed.
The towel miorobe has also been at
work in Chicago. A few days ago a
gentleman was asked in one of the swell
shops in st. Louis if he would have a
hot towel over his eyes. "Not for any
thing" he said. II was blind three
months in Chicago as a result of the
application Of a hot towel to my eyes,"
The use of a hot, damp towel seems
to be a western innovation. II is not
used in eastern barber shops. The young
man at the Baptist sanitarium is we'll
known in st. Louis. He withheld per-
mission to use his name because he
feared his parents would be unduly
alarmed. st. Louis Post-Dispatch.