406 ON THE ORIGIN, PROPAGATION, 



predisposition. Cornet once attended, in a hotel, an 

 actress far advanced in phthisis. A guest taking pos- 

 session of her room after her death, or removal, might 

 undoubtedly become infected. The antecedents of the 

 room being unknown, the case of such a guest would, 

 in all probability, be referred to predisposition. It 

 might be declared, with perfect sincerity, that for years 

 he had had no communication with phthisical persons. 

 There is very little doubt that numbers of cases of 

 tuberculosis, which have been referred to predisposition 

 or inheritance, are to be really accounted for by infec- 

 tion in some such obscure way. 



Cornet draws attention to hotels and lodging-houses 

 at, and on the way to, health-resorts. He regards them 

 as sources of danger, and he insists on the necessity of 

 disinfecting the rooms and effects after the death or 

 removal of tuberculous patients. He recommends 

 physicians, before sending patients abroad, or to health- 

 resorts at home, to inform themselves, by strict inquiry, 

 regarding the precautions taken to avoid infectious 

 diseases, tuberculosis among the number. The atten- 

 tion of those responsible for the sanitary arrangements 

 in the health-resorts of England may be invited to the 

 following observation of Cornet : * On a promenade, 

 amidst a hundred phthisical persons who are careful to 

 expectorate into spittoons, the visitor is far safer than 

 among a hundred men, taken at random, and embracing 

 only the usual proportion of phthisical persons who 

 spit upon the ground.' 



With regard to the permanence of the tubercle con- 

 tagium, the following facts are illustrative. A woman, 

 who had for two years suffered from a phthisical cough, 

 and who had been in the habit of spitting first upon 

 the ground, and afterwards into a glass or a pocket- 



