Evening star., 1932-10-20
The great open season for human
mouths has now begun.
No, we don't mean political discus

The great open season for human
mouths has now begun.
No, we don't mean political discus
sion.
Sneezing Is in order.
You can hear them ker-chooing on
the streets in public vehicles, in of1ces,
in elevators, wherever human beings
congregate.
Despite the fact that everybody dis
likes the sneezes Of others. few seem to
mind wholesale dissemination Of their
own cold germs.
Such campaigning as has been carried
on over the years by small majority
against this most unwholesome public
habit has been negligible in results.
People everywhere ker-choo as vigor-
ously as ever, without thought whether
the spray reaches the face and nostrils
of other persons.
Education. in this respect, seems a
dismal failure.
Some failures are more dismal than
others, of course.
Somehow the world wags right along,
whether the spirit of the arts and the
graces find ready lodging IN every
breast or not.
These failures are self-evident, in
herent In the very constitution OF
peoples. m . -.
"You can't make silk purse out OF
sows ear" said the homely OLD maxim.
There was an injunction, too, against
showing pearls to swine.
The pigs received rough treatment
then.
The hygienic campaign for the elimi-
nation of public sneeZfng, waged per-
sistently by few hardy souls, has re-
suited in nothing.
It remains, however, good campaign,
and one in which no effort is wasted, al.
though results may not seem to amount
to much.
Consider such an Autumn as the pres
ent
Perhaps there has been more sneezing
in it than in any past period. Such sta
tistics are difficult to get, and impossible
to prove. so that there need be no argu-
ment here.
There are certain persons however
who are abnormally sensitive to this
widespread public fault, a habit as OBJ
noxious to them as public splitting.
These persons are in the best position
TO speak upon this matter, fC" out of a
personal necessity they have p~,d great
deal of attention to it.
-
It is a curious fact that the ma ajority
of men and women are willing to turn
their personal health over to their ply
sicians.
They have swallowed. hook, line and
sinker, the oft-repeated fear that one
will turn into a hypochondriac If one
displays the slightest knowledge OF
health laws.
Although much has been done to miti-
gate this feeling doctors themselves
playing a large part in this better un-
derstanding), thousands of men and
women still persist in feeling that in
terest in health and disease Is almost
sinful.
The result is that many man who
is an expert" in his line Of business is
an ignoramus when 1t comes to the
conduct of his personal machine.
These persons almost invariably tend
to underestimate the common cold. and
to regard preventive measures, Of vari-
GUS kinds, as 50 much foolishness.
He who has been forced, by certain
structural weaknesses in his own con-
stitution, to make a more or less deter
mined study of helpful and inimical in
fiuences will know from personal ex-
perience that prevention is, indeed, bet
ter than cure.
Nothing quite takes the place Of per
sonal experience. The danger In 1t lies
in the common belief that what is
helpful to ones self necessarily must
be helpful to another.