94 Kansas Academy of Science. 



of dissemination and to destroy all contamination which may- 

 have occurred of the food and water taken into the system is a 

 positive insurance against typhoid fever. An additional pre- 

 cautionary measure is vaccination — one of the great accom- 

 plishments of the age based upon Pasteur's master contribu- 

 tion. 



XIII. ROBERT KOCH. 



In 1881 another genius entered the field of disease conquest. 

 Robert Koch was a country physician, and when his remark- 

 able work in bacteriology was begun he possessed none of the 

 equipment we now regard as indispensable to its study; yet 

 Koch's achievements have never been equaled. He has rightly 

 been called the Father of Bacteriology. It was he who ferreted 

 out perhaps the most destructive of all these minute missiles 

 of death — the tubercle bacillus, which he discovered in 1882.. 

 Up until the time that Koch magnanimously presented to man- 

 kind the results of his inestimable labors, tuberculosis was the 

 most despairing of diseases. That the disease is heritable was 

 the universal conception, and as a consequence family after 

 family for generations unnumbered were exterminated. It 

 seemed useless to attempt to combat its insidious onslaughts 

 when the disease was considered theirs by hereditary trans- 

 mission. 



A most resistant germ is the tubercle bacillus. It may live 

 for months in dark places. It resists to some extent both the 

 warm, dry, penetrating rays of the sun or the temperatures of 

 ice and snow. Its chief portal of entrance is the respiratory^ 

 tract, although the mouth also is a highway of the ingression. 

 The bacilli may enter through abrasions in the skin. The chief 

 source of dissemination is from the consumptive himself. 

 With each careless expectoration millions of germs are re- 

 leased, which await other victims. When the sputum dessi- 

 cates, the microbes firmly ensconce themselves upon veritable 

 aeroplanes of dust particles. The wind or the broom of the 

 good housewife then sends them on their journeys of destruc- 

 tion. They may gain entrance into the mouths of babes as a 

 result of the omnivorous habits infants have of sucking every 

 prehensible object, no matter the extent of contamination. No 

 wonder, then, that the disease was regarded as fundamentally 

 a heritage. Again, tubercle bacilli may enter the digestive 

 tracts of infants through milk from infected cows. It is now 

 generally held that bovine tuberculosis is pathogenic to man. 



I 



