The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-05-26
PERILS THAT TRAVEL. IN PAPER CURRENCY
 FOUND AT YALE.
Prof. Hildrich Finds an Average of 142,0OO Bacteria on Soi.ed Dollar Bills Though Some Have Lost Their Virulence

Paper money, as an avenue by which disease can be transmitted has been an object of suspicion for some time," says The Medical Record. 'In- deed, this particular form of exchange has been shown more or less conclu> sively, to be under favoring conditions an actual menace to the health of the community.
 ."HiIditch of the Sheffield laboratory of bacteriology and hygiene, Yale uni versity and Park of the Research lab oratory of the board of health of New York, have demonstrated that dirty paper money is t'similar to the paper and rags and capable of carrying liv- ing tubercle and diptheria bacillf for some days or longer
 "Hilditch, however, does not regard the danger as very great. He ob- tained twenty-four bills, the very dir tiest he was able to procure, and Sub- jected them to a minute examina tiOn, the outcome being that hes found the average number of bacteria in each of twenty-one bills to be 142,000. Fur ther, it was established by subsequent experiments that these organisms were not in possession of their full viru- Ience. The publication of these re- suits was not to create a feeling of confidence in the comparative harm lessness of the dirtiest paper money, or, at least, to seem to demonstrate that as sources for spreading infection such was not greatly to be feared.
 ''In a recent issue of The Popular Science Monthly, A. Greasy Morrison writes to point out that the menace of paper money must not be wholly judged from the virulence or the na- ture of the germs discovered. He per tinently draws attention to the fact that the infection of drinking water with the germs of typhoid fever should not estimated from the number of the bacilli typhosi found, for if that were the case water would be seldom condemned, and those bacilli are sell dom discovered.
 "In brief, Morrison contends and it appears contends with justice, that it is not so much the question of yiru- Ience or even of the nature of the organisms found on paper money, but that experiments have esta blished that money is medium of bacterial com munciation from one individual to another. In order, therefore, to elu- cidate the matter, paper money known to have been exposed to cOntamina- ton by highly infectious organisms should be examined by scientific ex- perts. It has been ascertained that money can be infected by handling; it has also been shown that the germs of diptheria and tuberculosis may live on infected bills for several days. Morrison says Tt seems but a step, then, to the final demonstration of the actual transmission of these and sim- liar diseases by money in circulation and to the prevention of such spread of disease by the proper measure to eradicate such possibilities.
 There is little doubt that disease iss spread in ways that We know not, Sven in these times of advanced re- search. If paper money does spread disease, though but to an extremely small extent this is reason sufficient to insist upon the more rapid with drawal from circulation of soiled bills and the issuing of new and clean notes.
 s'The results of more minute and ex- haustive investigations into the ques- tion of infected paper money as a means of spreading disease should be interesting and valuable"