TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE BY MONEY 87 



offices, banks, drug stores and individuals in different part of the 

 state"? When the facts of the transmission of cholera and typhoid 

 by drinking water were discovered it was not by the demonstration of 

 the corresponding germs in water, dirty or otherwise, which was taken 

 at random. Indeed, these demonstrations were the last and most 

 difficult steps in the whole chain of evidence and were only successful di- 

 rected to water known to have been closely associated with epidemic 

 outbreaks of the disease. By what reasoning, then, may we expect any 

 more ready demonstration of infected money and why should not the 

 same outside evidence of the possibility of infection guide as in the 

 selection of money samples to be examined ? Likewise, the demonstra- 

 tion of malaria in mosquitoes and bubonic plague in fleas was the last, 

 not the first step in the chain of evidence, proving the avenues of infec- 

 tion of these diseases. The possibility and even the probability to a 

 high degree were previously established by other evidence so that the 

 material examined was advantageously selected. 



Precisely as with cholera and typhoid the examination of water 

 casually selected offers practically no opportunity of proving the trans- 

 mission of these diseases by the demonstration of their specific infective 

 organisms in the samples; exactly as with malaria, yellow fever and 

 bubonic plague the examination of mosquitoes and fleas selected at 

 random offers no promise of proving the transmission of these diseases 

 by these hosts; so the examination of 24, of 240 or even of 2,400 bills 

 not selected with intelligent appreciation of the opportunity for infection 

 will contribute nothing at all to the solution of the transmission of 

 infection by dirty money. 



Great saving of human suffering and even life has resulted from 

 triumphs referred to ; likewise, the closing of other avenues of infection 

 will certainly act as a prophylactic measure in regard to other infec- 

 tions. It is particularly desirable to discover the transmitting media 

 of the more common but no less fatal organisms, such as the germs that 

 infect the respiratory passages, notably the germs of colds, grip, diph- 

 theria, pneumonia and tuberculosis. It is probable that the avenues of 

 transmission of these germs are limited as are those of the diseases al- 

 ready discovered. It is, therefore, much more difficult to demonstrate 

 the exact part that any particular avenue plays in the transmission. 

 That dirty money, which, according to Mr. Hilditch, of the Sheffield 

 Laboratory, Dr. Park, of the Eesearch Laboratory of the Board of 

 Health of New York, found to be "similar to other paper and rags 

 and capable of carrying living tubercle and diphtheria bacilli for some 

 days or longer," plays an important and unfortunate part in such 

 transmissions is not only highly probable but is rendered more so by the 

 very conditions found by Mr. Hilditch on the twenty-four bills selected 

 by him from various sources, none of which is known to have had any 

 direct connection with infectious material. 



