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Show That Peck of Dirt The ancient philosophy that one must eat a peck of dirt before he dies has gone into the discard. We are getting new ideas on the subject. sub-ject. We were formerly content to drink most any kind of clear water or white milk, but now we insist that the water be checked for harmful bacteria, and when possible, pos-sible, purified iby the latest type of filter plant and sterilized Iby chlorine gas. The milk must be clean, and besides that, -we like it pasturized for extra safety. We advocate proper garbage and sewage disposal and the cutting off of the generations of the house fly. As a result, we have the lest dirt-borne disease of any age in history. "What you can't see or don't know won't hurt you". This refuge for careless and dirty people has led many a person to an early end. There is a clean dirt and a dirty dirt. Coal soot soils the linen, (but does not poison us. The dirt of the machine shop or the cornfield is ordinarily harmless when on our hands or clothes, or even in our food. Dirty dishes are merely smeared with food perfectly wholesome food as a rule which has 'been left. Actually it is the" dirt that you can't see that is most dangerous. A lump of clay would obviously render a bottle of milk unfit for drinking, but otherwise would do little harm. A few germs of typhoid ty-phoid in the same bottle would be entirely beyond detection, even by the most refined bacteriological technic, but might easily cause disastrous dis-astrous consequences. The most common source of dangerous dan-gerous dirt is the human body. This kind of dirt carries the germs of typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria. smallpox, influenza, colds, and most of the other catching catch-ing diseases. Since we cannot often tell which is the clean dirt, and which is the dirty, it is best to keep it all out of our mouths and as far away from the rest of the bodies as we can. It is very doubtful if many folks eat their allotment of a peck of dirt the undertaker usually gets them first if they even try it. |