Bound up in twin desires for privacy and intimacy, the telephone has a long, quarrelsome rapport with the sense of touch. Delving into the design of public telephony, primarily in the United States, between 1880 and 1910, this article plumbs how telephone booths evolved to address the tangible by-products of soundproofing spaces for privacy. Health officials and the calling public targeted booth designs as seedy and infective, unresponsive to the sweat, respiration and odours callers' bodies exuded. Seen as factors communicating diseases, these by-products turned telephony into a uniquely early `viral' technology, and technological touch into an involuntary, atmospheric and contaminating experience. As a corrective, US booths became wedded to air conditioning. The marriage secured public telephony as an individualized sensory space, and equated privacy with sanitation. This transformation integrated telephony into a larger design shift around the turn of the century towards tactile restraint, individuation, and hygiene, and reveals how health was designed into the very feel of early media artefacts.
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