696 PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION I. 



Morgagni, who lived about 200 years ago, and was the founder of 

 the science of pathological anatomy, was well aware of the contagious 

 nature of consumption. A keen observer, a man who was consulted 

 by his seniors, " adeo erat in ohservando attentus, in praedicendo cautus 

 in curando felix,'''' the author of a great work on the cause of disease, 

 based upon exact anatomical observations, Morgagni was so convinced 

 that consumption could be contracted by contact with something 

 tubercular that he absolutely refused to make a post-mortem examina- 

 tion upon persons who had died from that disease. (" Encyclopaedia 

 Brit. ") 



The compulsory notification of consumption, and the compulsory 

 disinfection of the dwellings of consumptives after their decease are 

 usually regarded as institutions of quite modern days. But in some 

 old records of the city of Nancy, some time in the eighteenth century, 

 one may read the story of a woman who contracted consumption, and 

 who had frequently shared the same bed with another woman who 

 died of consumption ; and it is stated that the municipal authorities 

 of the city, recognising that this woman had caught the disease from her 

 bedfellow, ordered the furniture and bedding of the latter to be burned. 



It will surprise most of you to know that in 1782 a royal decree was 

 issued at Naples, ordering the isolation of consumptives, and the 

 disinfection of their apartments and their personal property. If anyone 

 disobeyed this order he was liable to be punished with three years in 

 the galleys, or with a fine of 300 ducats, together with imprisonment 

 in a fortress. 



To-day, a physician in this State who fails to notify a case of 

 consumption is liable to a fine of £10, but in Naples, in the eighteenth 

 century, failure to notify involved the physician in a fine of 300 ducats 

 for the first offence, and for the second offence banishment from the 

 country for a period of 10 years. 



In Spain and Portugal at the end of the eighteenth century the 

 parents of a consumptive were obliged to notify the authorities when 

 the disease had reached the final stage, so that proper disinfection 

 might be carried out. 



Now, I have said enough to show that the infectious nature of 

 consumption has been asserted for ages. But the frequent repetition 

 of a principle does not prove that principle to be true. After all, no 

 one had brought forward incontrovertible evidence that consumption 

 was an infectious disease, and in the nineteenth century it was not 

 suspected that the only way in which consumption could be contracted 

 was by contact with something tuberculous. 



"Tuberculosis," said Pidoux, an antagonist to Pasteur, in a speech 

 that was greatly applauded at the time, " Tuberculosis is the common 

 result of a quantity of divers external and internal causes, and is not 

 the product of a specific agent ever the same." 



When Villemin, a disciple of Pasteur, proved that tuberculosis is 

 a disease which reproduces itself, and cannot be reproduced but by 

 itself, he was treated almost as a disturber of medical order. (" Life 

 of Pasteur.") 



