The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-25

daI Doormats and Aseptic Wells.
 Germ fear is a feature of the twenti- eth century. There is an antiseptic or germ-destroying craze. The public. or a part of it, awakened at last to the existence and the peril of germs, de- mands-a little too frantically perhaps germ protection.
 In response to this demand there are offered to the public many strange and ingenious devices. The object of these devices is the prevention of all such diseases as arise from the swal- lowing of germs. or their touch, or their inhalation. Thus:
 There are on the market money scoops-silver instruments of pocket size-wherewith to handle unsterilized coins.
 There are germicide doormats. These being stepped upon in the right spot emit spray of highly volatile fluid that is supposed to render harmless the millions of disease germs gathered on the shoes amid the dust and mud of the cities.
 There are wind veils for men no less than women, to be worn over the mouth and nose as a preventive of the inhalation of germs.
 There are fumigating attachments for letter boxes. These. on being compress ed, are guaranteed to sterilize the re- cipients mail before he touches 1t.
 There are hanging tubular baths for railways. The ends of canes and um- brellas, dipped in these baths, come forth clean of germs.
 There are aseptic communion cups, with tiny rotating brushes that wash the cups edges as they pass from one communicant to another.
 There are generators that sterilize carpets, walls, clothing, books, etc.
 There are pocket lamps that emit a germ-killing vapor. These are for the cleansing of cups at public drinking fountains and for other purposes.
 It may be doubted if so great a fear of germs as all these devices indicate is altogether sane. But it is. at any rate, a fear that does more good than harm. Between the general sanitary conditions of the present and the past the contrast is amazing, and in the bringing about of that contrast the public fear of germs plays it's part.
 Tn one of the London hospitals they still preserve as a relic a bed of four teen or fifteen feet wide. In that bed in the past a dozen patients would lie side by side, one with consumption, an- other with smallpox, a third with ty- phoid fever and so on.
 It is different to-day. To-day conta- zion and infection are guarded against as thoroughly as thieves are guarded against by misers. And still those pre- week, some new preventive of the spread of disease is devised.
 And there has sprung up the germ hunter-the health faddist-who hunts germs as a sportsman hunts game. In- numerable are the weapons wherewith the germ-hunter seeks his prey. A good place to examine these weapons is a surgical instrument shop.
 A surgical instrument dealer, on be- ing asked to exhibit his various germ destroyers, pointed to a doormat. It was like any other doorrnat of rubber, only a lemon shaped rubber bulb was attached to 1t.
 What" said the visitor, lis that bulb for?''
 "I'll show you,'' the dealer answered
 He stood upon the mat and he com pressed the bulb with his toe. Immedi- ately a silver-colored mist arose. Foi an instant he stood in this mist ankle deep Then, as quickly as it had aris- en, the mist disappeared, leaving the mans shoes and the bottoms of his trousers quite dry.
 Ibid you notice that spray of volatile fiuid?'' he said. Well, that was a spray of germicide or disinfectant This. is a patent germicide doormat This mat cleans your feet when yol come In of the disease germs gathered in the mud and dust"
 "A remarkable mat" said the visitor s'Does 1t sell?"
 "It sells we'll" the other answered stAll germ killing devices sell we'll ir this age. This is the age of germ fear.''
 He took from a case an armful oi glittering objects. They were of glass and silver. and their shapes were strange.
 All tllCSC llloll OtliCht0s 1lC Sdluy hil germs or ward off germs. I will ex plain them to you"
 He pointed to small silver scoop.
 That is money scoop" he said "A number of health faddists carry scoops in their pockets. They know that the average coin has on it abou 100000 gern1s-germs of consumption of smallpox, of typhoid of diphtheria- and therefore, they will not touch { coin with their fingers until it has beel sterilized. When you give them chang they receive it in their scoops instead of in their hands. Thence it goes int their sterilized purses, to be thorough ly funnigated at home. I know thre, men and two women who use thes' money scoops. The scoops are mad, of silver and they cost one dollal apiece"
 He took up a tiny lamp--a lamp witl two wicks that rose out of a cake o sulphur. In the middle of the cake o sulphur there was a vial of transpar ent fluid
 'This is pocket fumigator' he said You take the stopper from the via and light two wicks, and thereupon vapor deadly to every kind of germ arises. The pocket fumigator is ap piled by the germ hunter to the publi drinking cups in railway stations, t .I..l-