BY JOHN H. GIRDNER, M.D.

THE leather straps in the street-cars of New York and all other cities, to which people have to hang when unable to get a seat, are not only unmentionably filthy, but they are a means of spreading disease. Each one of these straps is a focus of infection, a continual repository and source of supply of every kind of disease germ and about every kind of filth known to mankind. These car straps are made of leather. They are riveted around the pole from which they hang, when the car is built, and there they remain until they or the car are worn out. They are never removed to be cleaned or disinfected. And they are never renewed until the old one is rotten from age and use. Thousands upon thousands of all sorts and conditions of people, hailing from everywhere and with every imaginable variety of filth and infection befouling their hands and fingers, grasp these straps at all hours of the day and night.

Some idea of the conglomeration of materials which these thousands of hands deposit, remove and mix up on the car straps might safely be left to the imagination. Microscopic examination of scrapings taken from straps in use on cars in New York City has revealed infectious material and filth of all kinds. Cultures made from these scrapings and injected into guinea pigs caused their death in a few hours.

Car straps may readily be the means of conveying the virus of some of the most loathsome diseases, especially those attended with a discharge, or where there are open ulcers or eruption on the skin. In traveling about the city people hold on to the car straps from a few minutes to half an hour. The perspiration of the hand moistens the leather and whatever of filth or virus happens to be on the hand is literally soaked into the strap and there it remains until another hand comes along and carries some of it away or makes another deposit of similar character or both. It is true that the skin everywhere, and especially the thick skin on the hands, is an excellent protection against poisonous material brought into contact with it, otherwise man could not live at all. Here is a good example of what is meant: You might cover your entire arm with vaccine virus and it would not “take” if the entire skin was intact, but scratch it ever so little, making a small raw spot, and the virus enters the system and you have all the symptoms of a successful vaccination. So it is in handling straps which have been handled by others with virus of any kind on their hands; if there are no raw or sore places on your hand you are not in danger, but a slight abrasion, a cut or hang-nail may be sufficient to cause infection, as happened to a patient of mine only recently.

There is another danger: virus on the hand may be carried to the eyes by the fingers and cause mischief when there is no abrasion on the hand to admit it to the system.

Aside from the dangers pointed out, there is the esthetic side. It is far from pleasant to hold on to one of these straps if one stops to think what may be, and what certainly is, on the strap. You can put on gloves; but it is not even pleasant to think of wallowing one’s gloves in such material.

You cannot disinfect leather without destroying it; even if these leather straps could be removed from the poles. Here is the remedy: Use straps made of webbing instead of leather, and attach them to the poles with a device which would make it possible to remove the straps readily. Remove the straps at proper intervals, once a month or so, and thoroughly disinfect them with heat and formaldehyde. They will come out of this thoroughly cleaned and without injury to the strap itself. Webbing straps are stronger than leather. Tests made at Brown University of the comparative tensile strength of the two materials showed that, while leather straps of the regulation kind broke under 400 or 500 pounds, it took 600 and 700 pounds to break webbing straps. The webbing strap is also more pleasant to grasp in the hand than leather.

Every argument is in favor of substituting webbing for leather as material for car straps except the small item of expense to the companies of making the change. The cost of disinfecting them from time to time would be trifling. The president of the Board of Health of New York City has, in fact, expressed his willingness to disinfect the straps free of charge to the companies, if they will bring the straps to the department’s disinfecting plant at such intervals as he shall designate.

Spitting in cars is properly prohibited because there is some danger of spreading tuberculosis by this means. And it is also a practice revolting to well-bred people. As a means of conveying the germs of a number of loathsome diseases, the present car straps are more dangerous than is spitting on the floor. And it is certainly revolting to a man or woman of ordinary habits of cleanliness to be obliged to hang on to a piece of leather which is so filthy that one would not touch it under any other circumstances.