Should mosquitos be allowed in the house? No; for one variety carries malaria, and yellow fever, and they all should be carefully guarded against. 26 Efficiency in Home Making How can one prevent them from breeding? Keep all cisterns and rain barrels covered with netting, and see that there are no tin cans, or other places for water to stand. Where do they sometimes breed in city houses? In unused toilets and wash bowl traps. How should pools of stagnant water be treated? With a little film of coal oil. It will destroy the larva. Should water bugs and cockroaches be allowed in the kitchen? Never, under any circumstances. In an apartment where there is a ventilating flue they can crawl through from other apartments, what will keep them out? Tack fine wire gauze over the ventilator. If there is a dumb waiter in the apartment what should be done? Put a border of insect powder all along the ledges in the inside. What should be done if bed bugs get into a bed. It should be taken apart and cleaned thoroughly ; use some good bed bug poison. How can the nits or eggs be destroyed? By varnish- ing the bed carefully, over all the inside, after taking it apart, going over every particle of it and every crack, also the woodwork of the springs, then varnish the base boards of the room, reaching up into the cracks along the lower and upper edges. What good will this do ? The bug poisons will not kill the nits or eggs, but the varnish will coat them so they can never hatch. If they have gotten under the wall paper, what must be done ? It must be all torn off, and bed bug poison put on all along the top of the base board, and in all the cracks. Varnish or paint the baseboards, not letting a single crack escape. To rid the house of insects of various kinds write to the Bureau of Entomology, of the Department of Agri- culture, Washington, D. C, for information. It will be furnished free of charge. Efficiency in Home Making 27 THE UNSEEN ENEMIES IN THE HOME. What may we call unseen enemies in the home? Bac- teria, or germs ; for while they are too minute to be seen without a powerful magnifying glass, they have power to destroy health and even life itself. How large are bacteria ? It is estimated that 600,000,- 000 could be comfortably lodged in a space occupied by a grain of sugar. Who first began to grow and cultivate these bacteria or dust plants? Louis Pasteur, in France, less than sev- enty years ago. He laid the foundation for the science of bacteriology. Who discovered that bacteria is the cause of disease, and not the effect of it ? Robert Koch, more than twenty years after Pasteur made his experiments, built up the germ theory of disease. Many brilliant discoveries have since been made regarding germ diseases. Mention some germ diseases. Typhoid fever, yellow fever, tuberculosis, malaria, Asiatic cholera, pneumonia, colds. Why is it so necessary for the surgeon to wash and scrub his hands, and also use powerful germicide, before coming in contact with a surgical case? Because the wrinkles in the skin of the hands have the depth of ditches six or eight feet deep in comparison with bacteria, and only a powerful germicide can destroy them when so deeply lodged. What effect do bacteria have on our food? They change it into a moldy, putrid mass, unfit for use.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Should mosquitos be allowed in the house? No; for one variety carries malaria, and yellow fever, and they all should be carefully guarded against. 26 Efficiency in Home Making How can one prevent them from breeding? Keep all cisterns and rain barrels covered with netting, and see that there are no tin cans, or other places for water to stand. Where do they sometimes breed in city houses? In unused toilets and wash bowl traps. How should pools of stagnant water be treated? With a little film of coal oil. It will destroy the larva. Should water bugs and cockroaches be allowed in the kitchen? Never, under any circumstances. In an apartment where there is a ventilating flue they can crawl through from other apartments, what will keep them out? Tack fine wire gauze over the ventilator. If there is a dumb waiter in the apartment what should be done? Put a border of insect powder all along the ledges in the inside. What should be done if bed bugs get into a bed. It should be taken apart and cleaned thoroughly ; use some good bed bug poison. How can the nits or eggs be destroyed? By varnishing the bed carefully, over all the inside, after taking it apart, going over every particle of it and every crack, also the woodwork of the springs, then varnish the base boards of the room, reaching up into the cracks along the lower and upper edges. What good will this do ? The bug poisons will not kill the nits or eggs, but the varnish will coat them so they can never hatch. If they have gotten under the wall paper, what must be done ? It must be all torn off, and bed bug poison put on all along the top of the base board, and in all the cracks. Varnish or paint the baseboards, not letting a single crack escape. To rid the house of insects of various kinds write to the Bureau of Entomology, of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, for information. It will be furnished free of charge. Efficiency in Home Making 27 THE UNSEEN ENEMIES IN THE HOME. What may we call unseen enemies in the home? Bacteria, or germs ; for while they are too minute to be seen without a powerful magnifying glass, they have power to destroy health and even life itself. How large are bacteria ? It is estimated that 600,000,- 000 could be comfortably lodged in a space occupied by a grain of sugar. Who first began to grow and cultivate these bacteria or dust plants? Louis Pasteur, in France, less than seventy years ago. He laid the foundation for the science of bacteriology. Who discovered that bacteria is the cause of disease, and not the effect of it ? Robert Koch, more than twenty years after Pasteur made his experiments, built up the germ theory of disease. Many brilliant discoveries have since been made regarding germ diseases. Mention some germ diseases. Typhoid fever, yellow fever, tuberculosis, malaria, Asiatic cholera, pneumonia, colds. Why is it so necessary for the surgeon to wash and scrub his hands, and also use powerful germicide, before coming in contact with a surgical case? Because the wrinkles in the skin of the hands have the depth of ditches six or eight feet deep in comparison with bacteria, and only a powerful germicide can destroy them when so deeply lodged. What effect do bacteria have on our food? They change it into a moldy, putrid mass, unfit for use.

Efficiency in home-making and first-aid to good cooking