Year: 1875

The promiscuous kissing of children


a pestilent practice. We use the wore


advisedly, and it is mild for the occasion
| Murderous would be the proper word


did the kissers know the mischief the!


do. Yes, madam. nlurderoeS and we arr
| speaking to you. Do you remember call


ing on your dear friend Mrs Brown Tho
other day, with strip Of flannel round
| your neck? And when little Flora came
| dancing into the room, didn't you pounce
upon her demonstratively, call her pre-


cious little pet, and kiss her? Then you
serenely proceeded to describe the dread


full sore throat that kept you from prayer


meeting the night before You had nc
designs on the dear child's life, we know
nevertheless you killed her Killed her
as surely as if you had fed her with
strychnine or arsenic. Your caresses
were fatal


Two or three days after, the little pet
began to complain of a sore throat too.
The symptoms grew rapidly alarming +;
and when the doctor came, the single
word diphtheria suficed to explain them
all. To-day little mound in Greenwood
is the sole memento of your visit.


OF course the mother does not suspect,
and would not dare to suspect, you of
any instrument tality in her bereavement.
She charges it to a mysterious Provi-
dence. The doctor says nothing to dis
turb the deluson; that would be impo-
lite, if not cruel: but to an outsider he
is free to say that the childs death was
due directly to your Internal stupidity.
Those are precisely his words: more for
chile than elegant, it is true; but who
shall say, under the circumstances, that
they are not justiiable2 Remember


evil is wrought by want OF thought


As well as by want of heart"


1t would be hard to tell how much of
the prevalent sickness and mortality
thought. AS a rule, adults have the dis
ease in so mild form that they mistake
it for a simple cold; and as cold is not
contagious, they think nothing of expos
ing others to their breath or to the great
er danger of labial contact Taking into
the well established fact
that diphtheria is usually if not always
by the direct transplant |
ing of the malignant vegetation which
causes the disease, the fact that there
can be no more certain means of bring |
ing the con tagion to it's favorite soil than |
the act of kissing, and the further fact
that the custom of kissing children on
all occasions is all but universal, it is not |
that when the disease is once
imported into a community, it is very |
likely to become epidemic.


1t would be absurd to charge the
spread of diphtheria entirely to the prac-
tice of child-kissing. There are other
modes of propagation, though it is hard
to conceive OF any more directly suited
to the spread of the infection or more
general in its operation. 1t stands to
liphth iberia about the same relation that |
promiscuous hand shaking formerly did
TO the itch.


1t were better to avoid the practice.
The children will not suffer if they go
and their friends ought for
heir sake to forego the luxury for sea
son. A single kiss has been known to
infect a family; and the most careful
nay be in condition to communicate the
disease without knowing it. Beware,
hen. Of playing Judas, and let the babies
Glone.-Scientifc american.