Imagine walking into a train station.
You’re thirsty.
You spot a drinking fountain.
Except…it’s not really a drinking fountain.
It’s a single metal cup hanging from a chain.
You take a drink.
Hang it back up.
The next stranger does the same thing.
One cup.
For everyone.
It sounds like the setup for a horror movie.
It wasn’t.
(And if your brain just thought of the infamous “two girls, one cup”, I get it. That is a 1-cup historical event that, no matter how hard one tries, you can’t forget.)
Before sanitary drinking fountains and disposable cups became common, shared drinking cups were an ordinary part of everyday life. Schools, train stations, public buildings, parks, and factories often had what was known as the common drinking cup—one cup used by everyone.
Then public health got involved.
@dr..eeks One cup. Everyone drank from it. In this Episode of Public Health is Weird… Before disposable cups and modern drinking fountains, it was common for schools, trains, and public buildings to have a single shared drinking cup. As germ theory gained acceptance, public health officials launched campaigns against what became known as the "common drinking cup." Some even called it "The Cup of DEATH.” Every generation has habits that seem perfectly normal… Until someone asks, "So…are we sure this is a good idea?" #publichealthisweird #didyouknow #historytok #healthfacts ♬ original sound – Dr. EeKS
The Cup of Death
By the early 1900s, germ theory was becoming widely accepted, and public health officials began looking at everyday habits through a very different lens.
Sharing one cup with hundreds of strangers suddenly seemed…less charming.
Health officials worried the common drinking cup could help spread diseases like tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid fever, and scarlet fever. Campaigns to eliminate it spread across the country, and states and municipalities gradually banned the practice in schools, public buildings, and on trains.
Some public health advocates even gave it a memorable nickname:
The Cup of Death.
Public health has apparently understood the importance of memorable messaging for a very long time. I mean, who wants to drink from THE CUP OF DEATH?!?!
When Jesus Meets Public Health
As a Catholic and someone who went to catholic school through high school, I have to admit…
I know a little about the common drinking cup.
For many years, the Precious Blood was commonly offered from a shared chalice in Catholic churches. Practices have varied over time and by parish, and many changed during and after COVID-19.
Whenever this topic comes up, my brain quietly whispers,
“This feels…historically familiar.”
It’s one of those moments where medicine, religion, history, and culture all politely bump into one another.
Public health rarely operates in a vacuum.
Neither does faith.
Public Health IS Weird
One of my favorite things about public health is that it constantly asks us to examine the ordinary.
The habits we’ve stopped noticing.
The things everyone accepts because…
…that’s just how they’ve always been done.
Every generation has practices that seem perfectly normal.
Perfectly reasonable.
Perfectly safe.
Until someone quietly raises a hand and asks,
“So, um…are we absolutely sure this is a good idea?”
Sometimes the answer is yes.
Sometimes the answer changes because science changes.
And sometimes the answer changes because we’ve simply learned something we didn’t know before.
A hundred years ago, sharing one drinking cup with an entire building was ordinary.
Today, most of us wouldn’t dare share a water bottle with a stranger. It’s unheard of.
It makes me wonder…
What are we doing today that people will look back on a hundred years from now and think, “Wait…everyone did that????”
A good source for this: JAMA, 1911
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Other gems from the Public Health is Weird Series:
When Your Wallpaper Wants to Kill You
Yes, The Gov Poisoned Alcohol During Prohibition
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