Women, plumbers, and doctors, or, Household sanitation / by H.M. Plunkett.

  • Plunkett, H. M. (Harriette Merrick), 1826-
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Women, plumbers, and doctors, or, Household sanitation / by H.M. Plunkett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Dr. Salisbury, of Ohio, found peculiar and characteristic organ- isms in the perspiration of persons suffering from fever and ague. Pasteur finds one sort of spore in the blood of animals suffering with splenic fever, and another in that of chickens suffering with cholera ; in short, the drift of research all points to the establishment of the fact that most of the contagious diseases are caused by a parasitic growth in the blood of the victim, which parasite is produced by the direct implantation of its seed in the system ; and Pasteur solemnly announces his conviction that it is within the power of man to make these parasitical diseases disappear from the face of the earth. 'Not every kernel of corn planted in a given field will ger- minate ; so not every disease-germ, swallowed or inhaled, will develop. The germ itself must be in a proper state of pre- paredness. What this is will be discussed later, but, having caught this vegetative vigor, it runs its course, and right here lies the explanation of its fatal results in the most robust and muscular, where in an epidemic it often occurs that those popularly called full-blooded succumb, while feebler sub- jects survive. The reason why typhoid fever is in many cases such a swift destruction will perhaps be better understood by computing the number of animalcules which are produced by the repeated segmentation of the parent into two, which takes place before it is an hour old, while it is changing the very nature of an albuminous fluid. Then each segment divides into two, and at the end of twenty-four hours the first tiny enemy of man has become more than sixteen millions, or, to be exact, 16,777,266 ! Think of a man carrying such a swarming horde in his blood—the devouring brood of a parent so small as to be seen only by the most powerful microscopes ! Typhoid Fever from Contaminated Well-Water.—Facts are more convincing than assertions, and they point the way of escape from danger. Dr. Austin Flint carefully studied an outbreak of typhoid fever, and reported its effects, in 1852; he evidently had at that time a prophetic glimpse of the nature of contagia, and he has lived to see that the views that then commended themselves to his philosophic judgment are at the