Transactions of the Maine Medical Association Volume 11 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... through the saturation of the surrounding soil. The time is coming when the water supply for all towns must be taken from some uncontaminable source, and introduced through a system of pipe. The physician must be ever on the alert to make known and suggest a remedy for these conditions. A recent writer in the columns of the Congregationalist calls attention to the danger connected with the present method of distributing the wine at the communion service in the various churches, where only a limited number of cups are used, thus requiring many persons to drink from the same vessel. We, as physicians, must quickly perceive the opportunities, at least, that such a practice gives for the communication of disease. It would seem that the cleanliness' and refinement we require in secular things ought to be a sufficient reason for changing the practice, for among those who are morally pure and physically clean, the practice of passing a drinking vessel from mouth to mouth is repulsive. But when we take into consideration the fact that many diseases, some of them loathsome and incurable, may be contracted by passing the cup from lip to lip, the magnitude of the evil becomes at once apparent, and the laws of hygiene demand that. to meet the conditions of our modern life, a change be made. The prevailing method has nothing to commend it but the force of custom. The church, once awakened by the physician to a thorough understanding of the situation, should not, and, I believe, will not, be slow to adopt every wise and precautionary measure for the welfare of the people, and in the interests of cleanliness and purity in all things, especially as it can be done without changing the service in any of its essentials, or subtracting in the slightest...