Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1917 — Talc of a Pin [ARTICLE]

Talc of a Pin

By DR. SAMUEL G. DIXON.

The pin is born with millions of brothers and sisters, whc> leave home to Travel to all parts of tire world. Oh their journey they come in contact with us human beings and it might be interesting to take up, what sometimes happens when they do so. Suppose a pin found its way into shirt manufacturer. We would be likely to hoardflfThrst lifThe mouth of one of those folding the shirt and preparing it for shipment. Tins pin, as well as others, might perhaps be making !ts first intimate acquaintance with • the germ that produces sore throat. The shirt gets to the consumer who smarts to make it ready for use. For the second time the poor pin finds the human mouth again, its abiding place. Possibly this time, it gets into an ulcerated mouth, thence it gets into the pin

cushion or some similar receptacle. The persons who handle these cannot recognize disease germs by the naked eye, and therefore the pin with its cargo of germs is ready for a new service. This time, perhaps, by a dressmaker, If she has the bad habit) already alluded to, she fills her mouth with these pins while she cuts with her patterns and tits various pieces together. This time for variation, the pin may have found lodgment in a healthy mouthT Nevertheless it is not a pleasant fault, when you know the pin’s history thus far, to think of anyone making such use of them. Many a mother who uses pins in fastening a child’s dress together, does the same thing, lly this time, in the pin’s life history, it is quite well armed with spores of germs and really is accountable for much harm along its path of travel. And now as it is getting old and about ready to close its life, a little child may be stricken with “toffsilltis or diphtheria of even scarlet fever, because some of these diseases are easily communicable from throats so recently affected by the disease that the danger is not recognized. The presence of the germs that have been referred to on the pin, is a real danger, as the physician or laboratory worker knows be can take these germs from pins in everyday use, and plant them in foodstuffs that will make them grow and multiply in giteat numbers; colonies can be seen by the naked eye and they can be injected into other living beings and produce disease. The habit of putting pins into the mouth would not continue for a moment if everyone knew this. The moral of this little stofy is, never hold pins in the moulh as they spread disease, even fatal disease.