The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-01
HOME HEALTH CLUB
Edited by Dr. David H. Reeder, Chi
 cagO.)
DANGEROUS HABITS: There are

DANGEROUS HABITS: There are many people, otherwise clean and all ways neat in appearance that have the disgusting habit of biting their finger nails. Others have a habit practiced in all sorts of public places, even at the dining table, of pecking their nose with their fingers. This habit is so terribly disgusting that one is hardly able to discuss it in polite terms and yet the vast majority of those addicted to it are utterly un- conscious of the habit and some are even what we might call "health cranks."
 This morning as I passed a grocery and market store the proprietor's brothers, who are in appearance un- usually neat and clean were standing in the doorway. Each of them was pecking his nose and handkerchief was not used. They went into the store and at once began to wait upon customers, handling bread, meat, vegetables, cookies, cakes, candies and other food stuffs, much of which must be eaten just as it comes from the store.
 am inclined to think that the dan- ger of infantile paralysis infection would be greatly 1essened if all of the people who handle or sell eatables of any kind were first given thorough and careful instructions in all kinds of sanitary laws and 1essons in habits of personal cleanliness and were then forced to observe those laws if they were at any time found to be disre- garding them.
 Typhoid fever is quite frequently spread by people that are known to the medical profession as typhoid carriers, through the very vicious habit of going to stool or voiding the urine without afterwards washing the hands.
 It seems like a shame and an out rage upon the decencies of life that anyone that teaches the laws of health as I have done for quarter of a cen- tury should find it necessary to speak of things like this, that are so obvious that it is almost incredible to think of finding educated and otherwise en- frightened people who fail to take such simple and necessary means of pro- tecting not only themselves but those they love, against the dangers of in- lection through such dangerous hab-
 
 ents should teach to the little ones is the use of the handkerchief and the second, personal cleanliness after the use of the toilet.
 If you observe the actions of al- most any child between the age of one to six years you will find the fin gers frequently in its mouth. no mat ter what those busy little fingers were d. nIo with it's feet, the cat, anything 1t may pick up in the yard or street and from that to the mouth. Only by reason of the fact that an Advise Creator has supplied the little mouth with fluid the little lives sound and humanity preserved.
 There are many other dangerous habits that are not confined to rhil- dren or ignorant people and the. - all help, to keep the doctors riding in au- tomobiles. How many of you put coins and paper money into your mouths? Stop and imagine the filthy pockets that some money has been in. How many stick the borrowed lead pencil into their mouth before using it.
 once Saw well uTeSSeu ueHVeTy man. young and good looking, walk into free dispepsary in order to re- ceive treatment for the vilest blood disease known to the human family. He was dressed in the showy uniform of his employers and carried a pencil for the use of the people that must sign for packages. Did you put that pencil into your mouth? Yes, I know 1t hurts to tell these things, but the only safe road is the road of know