Strictly Germ-Proof Comments

My grandpa told me about the story of when he was in the 6th grade at age 11 and recited this poem in front of his class, he is now 86 and remembers it perfectly and recites it daily. I was very surprised when i googled this poem and saw that this occurrence has happened to people before.

I read a similar poem in the Reveille paper roughly 65 years ago. A man lived an antiseptic life, eating antiseptic food from An antiseptic plate. Drinking from an antiseptic drinks from an antiseptic cup, lived his life an antiseptic way etc, etc. It finished with him dying an antiseptic death and being buried in an antiseptic grave, it puzzled me that poem. I was too young to realise the irony of it!

I found this poem copied in my father's handwriting, among some of his old Stanford Medical school records. Very apropos of him to keep this, as he was a doctor of public health for the city of Portland, OR, for 15 years until his untimely death at age 46

Strictly Germ Proof. At the age of 10, I was taught this poem and learnt it by heart. I have remembered it for 56 years, and have never found anyone else to have heard of it. I am absolutely delighted to have found it on the internet. I am now loking at Arthur Guiterman's other poems. Rosemary.