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Show DEATH-DEALING SOAP. Heretofore tho use of Eoap by a nation na-tion has been regarded as an index of its civilization, and the dirty peoples have been set aside as akin to Indians and hogs. But it is now to be feared that the newsboy and bootblack who scorn tho virtues of cleanliness and rafe soap out of the catalogue of necessities ne-cessities may not be so far wrong as they have been judged. Alas for society so-ciety credulity. We bad lost faith ,in most manufactured commoditiee, which have been found to be susceptible suscep-tible of being weakened, poisoned, drugged or diseased. We had come to look with suspicion into tho tea and coflce pots, had expected to find lour sugar sanded, mustard mealed, I milk watered, and nutmegs turned lout of Connecticut pine. Now we are startled itt the wash stand and in the bath room by the horrid announcement an-nouncement of death in the soap. A Philadelphia editor has discovered that some some Baponacious purveyors purvey-ors for the people's cleanliness uso the most vile, filthy, and diseased materiais in the manufacture of soap. The fat of animals who have died of putrescent diseases even is not rejected, re-jected, any offensive qualities being hidden from the senses by an amount of perfume. In this way cases of typhoid ty-phoid fever and diphtheria ore believed be-lieved to have been generated, especially espe-cially by washerwomen who have absorbed through their pores the poisonous poi-sonous matter contained in the soap which they use. Of late this subject has attracted the attention of physicians in New York and Philadelphia, some of whom, it is said, have become con- Yincwl tlmf (lira tn.iltrtr i a miih vinced that the matter is a much more important one than at first appears, ap-pears, and that it opens a vast field of new inquiry, not only as regards soap, but the absorption by the pores as a general cause of disease. The I editor of the Philadelphia Sun re-1 cently interviewed a well-known phy-1 sician on the Euhject of diptheria. j The doctor said that diptheria is con- : ceded by the profession to be a blood as well as a throat disease, and that the absorption by the pores from diseased soap might readily account for the malady being one of the blood. He had in some cases made an analysis of soap used by persons having diptheria, dip-theria, and has found that it was in an unhealthy condition, jcaused, no doubt, by the tue of putrid soap fat In the manufacture. man-ufacture. This being absorbed by the pores must certainly enter the blood and produce an uuhealthy system. and might cause Jany variety of disease in the person using ii besides mere diptheria. But in ibo examination he found Lhat mt only the common washing soaps are liable to tbi, but that, if anything, the highly-scented soaps are even wor;e. In none dd he find so much putrescence as in the highly perfumed per-fumed French soaps which are so high priced. Ncno ol Lhoso are entirely free from poisonous subs'ances, but the toilet BOaps are most so. By t.e use of pungent pun-gent scunti tho putridity of smell is deadened and can even te made u;c of as a perfume combined with certain chemicals, which are known the manufacturer.-. It depend very much on the constiiu'.ion of tha person whoso pores absorb this poison whether it turns predL-positi m to diphtheria at the present pres-ent time is the only reason why so much I of the piison absorbed should determine itself in this manner, and perhaps, it is the mcst Innocent ot" all. There is aa endleda variety of maladies which might result from where tho poison may settle. If in the lungs, it might brio about consumption; if in tha kidneys, Bright' disease, and so on. |