These little living particles are too small to be seen without a microscope, but they cause more disease and deaths than any of the big animals you are afraid of—like lions or bears or tigers. They make great deep sores out of little cuts, and prevent wounds from healing. So you can readily understand how necessary it is to keep all materials which touch broken skin perfectly clean, and they cannot be clean if touched by the hands. Neither is any material clean which has come in contact with dust.
Understanding this, your aim will be to keep germs out of any wound. If you do not have a first-aid outfit, you should have on hand a small package of sterile gauze.[C] Sterile means perfectly free from germs. Any cloth which has been washed and ironed is quite safe, however, if it has not been used. You see, heat kills germs. Use next to the wound the surface which has been folded inside.
Do not think that every germ does evil, for some germs are good—just as some people are bad and some are good. Indeed, we depend for some kinds of food upon the action of certain good germs. Among such foods are cheese and vinegar.
The disease germs which we dread most in cases of wounds are the germs of blood-poisoning and lockjaw (or tetanus). They are everywhere about us, in standing water, air, dust. They cannot do a bit of harm to the outside of the body, if the skin is unbroken—no more than a fly can do to the armor of some old knight. But if they can enter where the skin is broken, they begin to do all kinds of harm, which sometimes results in months of suffering from “infected” wounds, and sometimes finally causes the patient to lose a leg or an arm—or perhaps to die.
“And Clean Hands,” Suggested Soami
“We have spent a great deal of time on the subject of germs, children,” continued Miss Helpem, “because unless you really understand how necessary cleanliness is, you may not be particular to have clean materials.”
“And clean hands,” suggested Soami.
“Yes,” smiled the nurse, “Soami has noticed the nurses at the hospital washing their hands for five minutes in order to have them truly clean before attending to a dressing on a patient.”