There is scarcely a disease or a symptom that I ever heard of that has not at some time preyed upon my mind lest I become a victim of it. These fears are hard to throw off or laugh out of existence when once they have become a part of your very being. In order to avert untoward conditions which I thought might overtake me, I have changed from one occupation to another about as often as the man in the moon modifies his physiognomy. In making these changes I have often found it about like dodging an automobile to get hit by a street car.
CHAPTER IX.
GERMS AND HOW HE AVOIDED THEM. APPENDICITIS.
Morbid fears have been briefly mentioned. It may now be in order for me to chronicle some of the hygienic measures that I have pursued with a view to averting diseases to which I thought I might succumb. In a former chapter I reported having subjected myself to many rigid conditions in the hope of ridding myself of infirmities which I then had. Now I am looking to the future with the idea that prevention is better than cure.
The germ theory gave me a great deal of worry. I learned a bit about it and some of the habits of the ubiquitous bacillus. In this matter the little learning was, as usual, a dangerous thing. Germs were constantly on my mind, if not in my brain. It seemed that they were ever lying in wait for me and there was no avenue of escape. Sometimes my scrupulous care in trying to ignore the microbe caused me to be the subject of unfavorable comment. Once, at communion service, I took pains to give the cup a thorough rubbing before putting it to my chaste lips. It had just passed an unkempt and unwashed brother, and for my little act of circumspection I gained his ill-will. However, on the next occasion the cup came direct to me from the lips of a good-looking young woman and I remember that I did not take the usual precautions. This shows how inconsistent I was. I have since learned that some of the most virulent germs are to be found in the mouths of young ladies of the “Gibson-girl” type.
When I was necessarily obliged to quench my thirst at a public drinking-place I drank up close to the right side of the handle of the cup, as I thought that would be the spot least contaminated. In order not to breathe any more germs than I could possibly avoid, I kept away from theatres and places where motley crowds assemble and shunned dust and impure air as I would a leper. I had read that there was on the market a sanitary mask to be worn when going to places where there was the greatest danger of coming into contact with germs, but I did not think that I could work up sufficient nerve to appear in public muzzled in this way. I knew from reading how many million microbes of different kinds there are inhabiting every cubic inch of air, and it was indeed appalling to think what even one of them would do for me if it chanced to hit me in a vulnerable spot. I did the best I could and kept my windows open wide both day and night, that some of these little imps of Satan might ride out on the breeze. On a cold day I would sit shivering with my overcoat and heavy wraps on, while the wind was blowing a hurricane through any room. At this some of the neighbors were wont to smile, but when they rather intimated that I was a little off I reminded them that Columbus and all other men who lived in advance of the times were regarded as hopeless lunatics.
