[1463]. The more common diseases. The following are some of the more common diseases caught by touching the germs: Ringworm, mange, barber's itch, sore eyes, boils, carbuncles, lockjaw, small pox, chancroid, syphilis, and gonorrhoea (clap).
[1464]. Ringworm, mange, and barber's itch. These diseases are carried from person to person by finger nails and hands and from dirty water to those who bathe in it or have their underwear washed in it.
[1465]. Lockjaw. The germs of lockjaw are found in manure and in soil fertilized with it; hence, a bullet which passes through such soil before wounding carries these germs into the wound. Any wound soiled with such dirt will be infected. Also, wounds made by toy pistols and fire-crackers often contain lockjaw germs.
[1466]. Chancroid, syphilis, and gonorrhoea (clap). These are diseases whose germs are usually caught from prostitutes and whores, or from husbands who have caught the germs from prostitutes and whores. They are called "Venereal diseases," after Venus, the Roman goddess of lustful love, but they are very often caught in other ways than in sexual intercourse, and by innocent persons.
The chancroid plant causes a very nasty sore, the chancroid, which often destroys much flesh and causes buboes. The germ can be carried on the fingers to any part of the body. When the chancroid is healed and the bubo becomes a scar the disease is cured.
The syphilis germ will grow first where it is rubbed in, causing a hard ulcer, called a chancre, and after that it travels through the entire body. No place is sacred to its destructive power and it lives as long as the patient does. It is the cause of much insanity, palsy, apoplexy, deafness, blindness and early death. In mothers it causes miscarriages and in children it causes stillbirths, freaks, deformities, feeble minds and idiots; also, deaf and dumb, palsied, stunted, sickly and criminal conditions.
A syphilitic person is always dangerous although apparently well. He often has a sore mouth and his spit is as dangerous as that of a mad dog. The bite of such a man will develop a chancre and any pipe, cup, or tooth pick which he uses, or his kiss, will give syphilis. A syphilitic tattooer who wets his needles and his India ink with spit will put a chancre into the skin with the picture.
The instruments of cheap advertising dentists and of quack doctors or ignorant nurses can carry these germs from one person to another. So can the razors and caustic stick of barbers who are careless.
The clap plant likes to grow in the linings of the openings of the body where it is dark and warm and moist where it causes a catarrhal discharge called clap, which is easily smeared on hands, towels, handkerchiefs or by actual contact.
It grows well in the eyelids, causing great damage and often blindness. Many babies get the clap plant into the eyes during birth, from the mother, and unless treated within a few minutes after birth, have sore eyes and go blind,—a terrible calamity to the child and the family. If you have clap the germs can be carried on your hands to your eyes.