206 VEGETABLE PAKASITES. 



No further argument is then required to prove that the thrush 

 is a contagious disease, the spreading of which depends upon 

 the transfer of the spores of a fungus, and we may easily 

 understand the outbreak of it in large foundling hospitals. 

 One means of its spreading is fhe suckling several children at 

 the same breast; sucking-bottles, sugar-titties, and vessels in 

 general which are used in feeding children in community ; the 

 very hands of the child, or the fingers of the nurse, especially 

 when the latter has to attend several sick children, and 

 presents them to the healthy children to suck at; the chewing 

 of the food by mothers or nurses suffering from thrush ; the 

 tO} r s of sick children which are sucked by healthy ones; un- 

 clean articles of dress, bedding, &c. Berg mentions also that 

 artificial food, and especially the keeping of such close to 

 mouldering liquids, is likely to become a means of transfer. The 

 reasons for Berg's view will be found in the experiments men- 

 tioned at the end of this volume ; these render it very likely 

 that the thrush is a kind of mouldy fungus usually occurring on 

 old protein compounds exposed to the action of the air. It ap- 

 pears to me that a chief cause of the contagious nature of thrush 

 in large foundling hospitals and lying-in hospitals, must be sought 

 in the bath, and the vessels and things employed, such as sponges 

 and linen for cleansing the mouths of children, and in the water 

 itself used for bathing, in which the spores float about, and in 

 which vessels are washed which may be used for water employed 

 for cleansing the mouths of other children. In private practice 

 the thrush is likely to be transferred by the objectionable custom 

 of nurses, who have the charge of several children, bathing 

 them at one time arid place. These women are in the 

 habit of cleansing the mouth of the child with their finger, 

 either uncovered or wrapped in a rag of linen. If we consider, 

 moreover, how chapped and rough the fingers of such women 

 usually are, it will no longer remain doubtful that they may be 

 the cause of* spreading the spores of fungi in private practice. 

 Berg proved the contagiousness of this disease by transferring the 

 fungous layer on to the healthy mucous membrane of healthy 

 children living in various localities, by the following experiment. 

 He took some crusts of aphthae from the mouth of a usually 

 healthy child, which had suffered for four days from thrush, anu 

 placed them on the intact mucous membrane of four children 

 brought to the foundling hospital the day before without a trace 



