Half of Us Carry Influenza Germs

1919

BACILLUS PERSIST IN THROAT FOR SEVERAL MONTHS.

Presence of Microbes Found in Throats of Persons Who Have Never Had Disease.

Almost half of us carry the bacilli of influenza in our noses and throats all the time, according to a large number of investigations made in the last two years.

During the epidemic of influenza last year, Drs. I. W. Pritchett and E. G. Stillman found the bacillus influenzae in the throats and saliva of 42 per cent of 177 healthy persons from whom no history of respiratory infection was obtainable. At the same time Drs. F. T. Lord, A. C. Scott, Jr., and R. N. Nye found them in the pharingeal secretions of 76 per cent of thirty-four healthy men in the Harvard Student Army Training Corps. Dr. E. L. Opie and his collaborators found them in 35.1 per cent of all healthy men examined at Camp Funston.

Many Are Germ Carriers.

Now comes Drs. Agnes I. Windrell and Ernest G. Stillman with a report to the Journal of Experimental Medicine on examinations since the epidemic died out. This indicates that the percentage incidence of those harboring bacillus influenzae in the upper respiratory tract is as great during the post-epidemic period as it was during the influenza epidemic.

During December, 1913, to June, 1919, the percentage of carriers in a group of fifty individuals has averaged 4 per cent per month. In addition, it is of interest that in a boys' orphan asylum in which no cases of influenza had occurred during the epidemic, 30 per cent of throat cultures taken from 99 boys showed the presence of bacillus influenzae.

And this last is the same percentage as was found in fifty-two convalescents from influenza in an institution for girls.

Germ Persists for Months.

"It is evident," writes these investigators, "that bacillus influenzae may persist in the throats of healthy carriers for a considerable period of time." They cite six cases in which it persisted for five months and in thirteen others for four months.

Therefore, as nearly every second person has the germs of this disease in his throat, it behooves us all to be very careful to keep up our strength by cleanliness, fresh air and wholesome food in order that we may not lose our powers of resistance and open the way for these deadly microbes to invade our blood in such force that we cannot repel their attack.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 9.

Daily Bath For Beauty

1902

A daily bath in cold or tepid water is an indispensable aid in keeping the skin of the body in good condition, says the London Standard.

The complexion, also, very often suffers from insufficient washing in pure water, or, for preference, in rain water. It is impossible for those of us who live in large towns to keep the complexion quite as blooming and healthy as the inhabitants of country districts, but more care might be frequently taken to wash off the smuts that help to clog the pores of the skin, or the fine dust that covers the epidermis like a mass after a long day out, or, in any case, before going to bed.

Use hot rain water if it is possible to secure it, with two or three spoonfuls of oatmeal thrown in to soften the water. Next proceed to thoroughly massage the face with some good soap and a firm sponge; then rinse the skin in another basin of cold water, into which has been poured a few drops of eau de cologne or alcohol, finally rubbing into the face and neck a little cold cream.

Navajo Indians Take 'Bath' Without Water

1914

Through Necessity, They Have Adopted Unique Plan for Bodily Cleanliness

It has already been indicated that the great desideratum of the Navajo country is water. A perennial water famine is not conducive to habits of bodily cleanliness; and a real bath in real water is something that the average Navajo knows nothing of. Nevertheless, these Bedouins of the Southwest realize that a thorough cleansing of the body is necessary, and have invented a method of accomplishing that end that is well adapted to the land of thirst in which they dwell. This is the sweat bath.

A miniature hogan is built of sticks of wood, and banked up with earth until it is air-tight, with the exception of an opening large enough to admit the body. A fire is built outside, in which large stones are heated red hot. Then these are placed in the sweat house, in a position in which the "bather" will be unlikely to come in contact with them. Then the candidate for a bath crawls in, keeping his head in the open air. One or more heavy blankets are placed over the opening and tightly around the neck of the occupant of the sweat house, to prevent the escape of the heated air.

The Indians remain in the sweat house for several hours, perspiring with incredible freedom. When they emerge they dry themselves by rubbing with the hot sand of the desert. As a cleansing agent, the sweat bath would be hard to beat, although it is a rather heroic substitute for the tub bath of civilization. Nevertheless, it opens the pores of the skin, promotes circulation, and has much to recommend it in preference to the practice of the members of some other tribes, of never taking a bath at all. — Christian Herald.

Insane Suspect in Arson Investigation Sets Fires to Form "New World in Air"

Pennsylvania, 1920

Weird Story Related at County Jail by Maniac From Austria

Denies School Burnings

Frank Karna, Arrested by State Police at Webster, Says He is Agent in Two Counties of Band Formed at Przemyal; Fired Lumber Yards

In the arrest yesterday afternoon at Webster, Westmoreland county, of Frank Karna, an Austrian, who was placed in jail in Uniontown the authorities have a maniac who has confessed to burning three lumber yards and a stable at Webster. That is the extent of the connection they have made between the prisoner and the fires in Fayette and Westmoreland counties that have caused a loss of $500,000.

Karna, whose conversation is of the rambling nature of the mentally unbalanced, denies that he had anything to do with the school house burnings, that he ever burned a school house anywhere.

Questioned this morning Karna told the officers he was working under an organization with headquarters in Przemyal, Austria, and that he had been assigned to start fires in Fayette and Westmoreland counties for a peculiar purpose. The theory of his organization, as he related it, is this:

That the smoke from the fires started by the organization goes into the air and forms a new world — one without ills, by reason of the fact that all germs are killed in the fiery process. This is the only remedy for the troubles now besetting the human race. The world is too old, it has stood too long in one place. It needs a change as a chicken house needs to be changed from spot to spot to allow the sunshine to kill the germs of disease that accumulate. The world will be happy as soon as all germs are destroyed. This will be when his organization has set sufficient fires.

Karna is six feet tall. He has a wild, staring look, with a weirdly serious expression of the face. He told the officers he came to America eight years ago and has lived at Rankin, Webster, Pittsburgh and Donora. He has two brothers at Donora.

Referring to the organization set up to cure the ills of the world by arson, Karna said the "captain" was John Yelen of Przemysl; the "farmer," Yuzef Bukowsky; the "justice of the peace," John Putys; the "burgess," Yedicy Tydzik, all of Sivysouigalicyoi, Austria.

While the officers were inclined last night to believe they had the firebug who had terrorized the two counties for weeks, they were today without anything on which to base any such presumption. The prisoner told an entirely different story today from that drawn from him after his arrest when he declared an "irresistible something" caused him to start fires and that before he could tell more he must "get some rest so he could think."

The story that the man had confessed to the burning of the Marion school building at Fayette City is denied.

Officers are convinced that no one man started all the fires. They were too widespread.

The arrest was made by state troopers.

—The Daily Courier, Connellsville, Pennsylvania, December 11, 1920, page 1.