Flies and Fever in a Prison.—In August, 1908, thirteen prisoners in the jail at Easton, Pennsylvania, were taken ill with typhoid fever. They had not been near any sick persons and their food and water were found to be pure. All those sick were in cells in one end of the prison. About twenty feet from this end a sewer had been uncovered two weeks before and left open. This sewer carried the waste from the hospital where several patients were sick with the fever. Flies fed on the waste in the sewer and then with the germs sticking to their feet flew into the cells of the prisoners and walked over their cups, spoons, and food. A little girl who played near this open sewer and shared her lunch with the flies had a severe attack of fever two weeks later because the germs scraped from the flies' feet on her food got into her body and grew.
Milk and Disease.—We must be very careful to get not only clean milk but milk from healthy cows milked by persons who have no typhoid fever, scarlet fever, or diphtheria in their homes. If only one or two disease germs get into the milk from the hands of those who have nursed the sick, these will grow into immense numbers in a single day. Many of those who use the milk will then become ill. Hundreds are made sick in this way every year.
PRACTICAL QUESTIONS
1. Why is milk a good food?
2. What does a gallon of milk contain?
3. What is cream?
4. How is butter made?
5. For whom is milk specially good?
6. How does milk become poisonous?
7. Why is dirty milk more poisonous in hot weather?
8. Tell what harm unclean milk does.
9. How may milk be kept clean?
10. Explain how milk is heated to make it safe for use.
11. Show how flies may cause fever.
12. Tell how milk may carry diphtheria into our homes.
CHAPTER VII
HOW THE BODY USES FOOD
Organs for making ready the Food.—Before the food can get into the blood and be carried over the body to feed the muscles and the brain, it must be made into a fluid. This changing of the solid food into a liquid by the stomach and other organs is called digestion. The organs which do this work are known as digestive organs. They consist of a food tube and several bodies called glands.
The Food Tube.—The food canal is about thirty feet long. Its first part, the mouth, opens back of the tongue into the throat, named the pharynx. This leads into a tube, the gullet, passing down through the back part of the chest into the stomach below the diaphragm. The stomach is a bent sac opening into a tube over twenty-five feet long called the bowels or intestines. This tube is folded into a bunch which fills a large part of the cavity of the abdomen.