At first I thought this article written in 1912 to be a bit over the top. Germs in the dust? Prevent illness by wearing slippers? Of course, I gave it a second thought. I almost always wear slippers inside the house. I’ve got cats and dogs, and more than once I have waddled out of bed in the middle of the night to go pee, only to step in something unpleasant. Slippers just make sense. While I don’t look fearfully at dust, there are plenty of other things on the floor I would rather avoid with my bare feet.
Wear Slippers In The House
In England it is the custom not only for grown persons, but also for children, to wear slippers in the house. English children as well as grownups wear shoes as we in America wear rubbers, only out of doors. This is not only a more comfortable custom with regard to footwear than ours, but it is also more healthful.
The streets and sidewalks and even the yards are dusty. This dust, full of germs as it is, should not be tracked all over the house.
We would do well in the interests of preventive medicine to provide slippers for our children and to insist upon the wearing of them in the house. It is less trouble to change from shoes to slippers, even three or four times a day, than it is to cure an illness the germ of which may have been brought into the nursery on the soles of the children’s shoes.
Source: Bryan Daily Eagle And Pilot. Newspaper. May 08, 1912.
