Travers. — Oil Pathogenic Microbes. 61 



must often be disseminated in enormous numbers by currents 

 of air and otherwise, in localities inhabited by persons 

 afflicted with diseases so generated where no special arrange- 

 ments are made to prevent it ; and it must be apparent that 

 we have little reason to wonder, looking to the efficiency of 

 the natural modes of dispersion, and the facilities afforded by 

 the structure of human beings and of herbivorous animals for 

 their introduction into the system, at the occasional rapid 

 spread of the more malignant of these diseases, such as small- 

 pox, cholera, malignant typhus, &c., in places deficient in the 

 possession of proper preventive agencies. 



These agencies are of two kinds — first, such as free those 

 who are unavoidably exposed to danger of infection from 

 liability themselves to contract the special disease ; and, 

 second, such as are calculated to prevent the general spread of 

 infection in places where the disease is present. 



Of the first kind are vaccination, as in the case of small- 

 pox, and inoculation with the virus of other specific diseases, 

 so attenuated by culture as to reduce it to the condition of a 

 vaccine. The methods by which the latter effect is produced 

 are very interesting, and are entirely due to the wonderful 

 perception of Pasteur, who has demonstrated their efficiency 

 in the cases of rabies, fowl-cholera, swine-fever, and others, 

 though no success has yet marked the efforts made in such 

 diseases as typhoid fever, the glanders of horses, and the in- 

 fectious pneumonia of horned cattle, owing to the extreme diffi- 

 culty of attenuating the microbes of these diseases by culture. 

 But success is not despaired of in these cases, and the process 

 may in time be also applied to others of these forms of disease 

 in man. Pending this, however, it is our clear duty to adopt 

 measures of the second class above referred to. 



The most important of these are, — first, the isolation of 

 diseased patients, a thing which presents some difficulty in 

 private dv/ellings ; and, second, the immediate exposure to 

 destructive processes of the excreta of the patients, — and 

 when I speak of excreta I use the term in its largest 

 sense. 



Everything which has come into or which has been even 

 liable to the chance of contact with such patients should be 

 exposed to some treatment which has been proved to be 

 destructive to microbes and their spores, before uninfected 

 persons are subjected to the risk of contagion or infection, 

 especially where the actual destruction of tainted articles, 

 such as body -linen, bedclothes. Sec, is inexpedient or im- 

 possible — as, for example, in the instance of persons who 

 cannot afford the sacrifice. All the surfaces of the rooms in 

 which they have lain should be subjected to similar treat- 

 ment. In order to show the importance of this, Trouessart 



