Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-11-03

1 ion, and eminent scientists have
shown time and again that when
once the germ of some disease has
secured a foothold in the Shiny in
terror of mussacx or of an earthen-
ware jar it will infect successive
charges Of water. no matter how
pure the source of the la,ter's supply.
But the latter seldom is pure, for
the native water carrier, unable to
understand our prejUdices about the
matter, in nine cases out of ten fills
his jars and his bags from The near
est tank or pool, no matter how pol
luted.
Then there is the question of per-
scnal cleanliness and that Of the
houses. One finds the most majestic
Of mosques and temples, the most ex-
quisite and fairy-like of palaces
throughout the east, defiled by the
most filthy denominations, which an
! parently offend neither the olfactorv.
nerves of the natives nor yet their
sense of proprety and cleanliness.
The houses of the affiuent and the
| nuts or the poor have each their own
domestic heaps of offal sometimes
alongside, sometimes beneath the
raised floor, which are never re-
/ moved, but kept ripe by daily addi-
tions and by the constant rootings of
the pariah dogs, the vultures. the
razor-hacked hogs and the other
members of the beast and bird crea-
ton that attend to scavenger duty in
the orient. The markets too. are n
great breeding ground for epfdem
les, and in the Philippines riots were
almost precipitated in various towns
and villages by the insistence on the
part of the American authorities that
the accumulations of centuries of rot
ting fish, meat vegetables and fruit
tier should be carted away and de-
s"oyed. and the various market
booths burnt before any further buy
Ing and selling was allowed there.
Fire is a favorite agent of purifica-
ton employed by the white man in
the orient, one, too, that is used with
ruthless hand, especially during the
visitations of the cholera and of the
hatred with which, in spite of all
that is said to the contrary. the for
eigner is regarded by the Asiatic. Con
WINGED that the dirty conditions of the
native dwellings were responsible for
much of the spread of the disease, the
torch has been freely applied to
them! But it has proved of no use
Fer experience has shown, among
other places quite recently at Hong
kong, that the inhabitants of the
houses which had been destroyed by
the heal h authorities had carried into
their newly constructed abodes the
infection of the plague by means OF
insects harbored on their persons and
in their clothes. Fleas, in fact, are
pronounced responsible for the latest
outbreak of the plague in native
quarters that had been carefully dis
infected and pronounced wholly free
from contagion.
This shows that clothes-in the
case of the oriental-are almost as
disastrous in the spread of disease as
is water. Some natives, who invari-
ably wear the cleanest raiment, will
never wash, while others. who per
form numerous daily aolutions, insist
on resuming and wearing their
clothes. especially those concealed
from view. until they are infested
with vermin and drop to pieces from
old age. In the end the result is the
same, and, unfortunately the white
man in the east finds himself obliged
by his sense Of propriety to insist up
on the use Of clothes. his prejudices
on the score Of decency manifestly
predominating over anitary oonsid>
erations.