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Show I IN DEFENSE OF THE MASK. There has been much controversy over the efficacy of masks, but the strongest defense of the gauze protection protec-tion comes from a Chicago writer who declares that public opinion is right In asserting that the influenza masksJ ward off the disease. I The last Issue of Literary Digest! quotes the following from a doctor: "If the gauze "worn over the face j is expected to prevent the entrance en-trance of microorganisms to the respiratory tract it seems that the absurdity would be apparent to those who know that Prelffer's . bacillus, pneumococci, or stepto- cocci, must be magnified many hundreds of times to be visible at all, and that If the ordinary gauze mask be magnified to the same extent ex-tent it would show the meshes to bo bo large as to apparently offer no obstruction -to the house-fly. Such an attempt to mechanically prevent germ Invasion might be compared to fencing against fleas in Florida with'barbed wire." In replying to the foregoing, the Chicago Chi-cago defender of the mask says: "It Is eighty years ago this very year since a British civil engineer, James Simpson, finished at Chel-, Chel-, sea, London, the first sand-filter plant for a city. It was Intended primarily to remove the visible im-. im-. purities of the Thames water. Lit-' Lit-' tie did he or any one else dieam that the real danger in using that water was the visible living things ; that Inhabited it; for Pasteur had not yet shown that many diseases ' arc caused by microbes, and Koch . had not perfected the microscopic detection of germs. Yot it began ; at once to be noticed that, typhoid fever was less prevalent than it had ever been. "Not until nbput forty years ago was It fully demonstrated that filtration fil-tration can be so scientifically conducted, con-ducted, by the, aid of microscopic counts of bacteria, as to remove almost all danger of contracting typhoid from drinking water. "Then came anothor great discovery, dis-covery, namely, that a minute quantity of chlorln Is deadly to typhoid ty-phoid germs. One drop of liquid chlorln in two barrels of water is the average dose, but It usually suffices to kill nearly every ty-i ty-i phoid germ. When the discovery of chlorination of water was announced, an-nounced, it also was 'argued off the floor.' . . . 'Consider, they say, 'the absurdity of trying to kill the millions of microbes in a barrel bar-rel of water by merely adding half a drop of liquid chlorin.' Yes, it was perfectly absurd, but the microbes mi-crobes all died; perhaps by laughing laugh-ing themselves to death over the absurdity of it. "In drawing an analogy between a flea and a microbe, several elements ele-ments of difference are usually overlooked. A flea not only is capable of locomotion, but can dl-roct dl-roct his motions by the sennti' of smell. A microbe, on the other hand, is helplessly and aimlessly carried along by currents of air or water. In the case of microbes that are inhaled, it seems likely that most of them are either attached at-tached to particles of dust or to small globules of moisture. In either case, if the mask stops the grain of dust or globule of water the germ itself is caught also." |