The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-06
HOW DID THEY LIVEP

The more we think about it, the more we are led to wonder how anybody's s , ancestors ever lived to grow up to ma- turity. We are so continually reading Of new discoveries made by the doctors and scientists of germs, microbes, bacilla and the like which prey on humanity, and whose destruction is absolutely essential if human life is to continue on th's earth, that we are lost in wonder when we read how many people escaped before all these pests had been discovered. It will not do to argue that there were no disease germs in the olden time, for that would involve the belief that they have been only recently created. and that is absurd. If there were germs always. and if they were always as deadly as they are now claimed to be. why didn't they kill every body before the doctors caught onto their game?
 But letting that conundrum pass for the present. we are confronted with d.v- CTS arguments and specifications going to show how these germs are carried and deposited where they will do most harm. Here. again.. the theories and asserva- tions are as numerous as are the germs themselves. We are told of hundreds of ways and means by which the germs of different diseases are transmitted from one to another, and are instructed In all the best ways of preventing contamina- ton as we'll as of putting theslittle things out of business.
 all iy,r in Q to the front to upset our hitherto well stablished convictions. Of late VIC have seen many and strong arguments against wearing tight shoes and warm hosiery, especially in hot weather. The advantage of leaving the feet, and par ticularly those of the children, free and unconfined. was set forth in such bril- liant colors that we were fast becoming converted to the belief that it is a crime against humanity, and a double crime to wear them in hot weather.
 But now comes The London Mail. speak ing as one having authority. and knocks our belief endwise. Listen how 1t coo ingly condemns sandals.
 There is nothing more exquisltely beau tiiul than a baby foot, unless, indeed, it be a baby hand. But the foot requires the reasonable support and proper re, straint of a shoe to keep 1t perfect, and this support and restraint sandal does not afford; so the little foot "splays' or flattens; it loses its chubby contour and dainty coloring; 1t becomes hardened and ugly little foot instead of the soft, sweet thing 1t was before it was expected to meet the rigors of the pavement and the clements merely encased n straps and leather sole.
 That indictment is bad enough. but 1t | isn't all, for The Mail mixes the subject of microbes into the argument this way: There is, in London particularly and in any large town, distinct danger to which the wearers of sandals are liable | namely, the microbes of diseases which
 readily lodge between the nails and the | sensitive flesh of the toes. That the nails
 of the hands are death-traps in some in, | stance is a we'll known fact to medical men. who have traced the carrying of
 infectious complaints from one place to ure the nails of the feet may prove as
 potent cause of the spread of illness.
 There we have 1t. Besides spelling the
 "exquisitely beautifur' feet of the ba-
 bies, sandalled feet-and bare feet still
 more-are responsible for many of the
 ills that flesh is heir to. All of us who
 know anything about children are aware
 that their toes have a wonderful facility
 for striking anything and everything that | comes in the way. Rocks, roots
 stumps. bits of glass. nails are all fair
 game for the naked foot and a boy lack
 ing at least one sore toe is looked on with
 suspicion by his comrades, who think him
 too careful for this world.
 | But while we all know that the boys
 with bare feet are bound to stub theil
 toes, we did not know, till The Mail in
 formed us, that the little fellows wen
 about the country shovelling up microbes with their toe-nails and distributing tho
 result broadcast to the imminent danger o1
 humanity. That's where our information | has been short and that is where science
 butts in and enlightens us. Hereafter
 when barefoot boys are out on the war | path there should be some arrangement
 made to have their toes, especially th' big toe, fumigated. steriized, deodorized
 or something of the kind, to kill thu germs. Henceforth a barefoot boy i
 something to be dreaded summed am quarsntined. if We are to live long ant
 have health. But-how did our ancestor
 live to get grown?
 When Pope wrote. To! the poo I IoA