Show DISEASE FROM BOOKS A legal solemnity with dangerous possibilities in a recent issue of the medical jR egister wo find the following paragraph which coincides with the views of the subject of books contamination already expressed by an american analyst quite a little bustle has been made by the newspapers because a certain physician who was recently summoned to appear in a court in new jersey refused to kiss a very dirty looking bible which was presented to his lips in the administration of the oath the episode occasioned a stir in court and the physician was obliged to set aside his feelings to comply with the legal requirements it was not ho vever without a protest which we fully indorse the kissing of the bible in any case is a form which might easily without the sacrifice of solemnity or of the stricture of an oath be set aside in favor of simple touching of the book with the hand or recognition of it in the aver ration the lips are most sensitive receptacles for the germs of disease and from the motley throng of dirty and diseased persons who are summoned in a court of justice what infectious germs may not be disseminated the person who kisses a bible in court has not the least surety that his lips do not come into direction tact with the pollution left by a predecessor de cessor who was suffering from some foul skin disease or taint not to speak of the germs of eruptive fevers and the lite A very simple way of getting around the matter would be to have a bible bound in some waterproof material which could and should be sedulously washed clean after every use this is a precaution which is due to public health and which could easily bo instituted by every court if the lawyers who insist so strenuously on these fine points of law had more bible kissing to do themselves they might better realize the pertinence of what we say |