BACTERIA AND DISEASE 389 



him if he will have this thing or that, but bring it to him without 

 annoying him with the necessity of deciding for you. Anything which 

 disturbs or annoys him uses up some of the strength which he needs in 

 overcoming the germs of disease. 



In a contagious disease all visitors should be excluded from the room, 

 and all furniture not absolutely necessary should be removed. 



When the disease is at an end, the sick room should be thoroughly 

 scrubbed with an antiseptic. It should be opened to the sunlight and 

 air for several weeks before being used again. Everything possible in 

 the room should be boiled or scrubbed. The patient should receive a 

 thorough bath before leaving the sick room. 



692. Blood poisoning. Disease germs may grow upon 

 any open wound, making it tender and causing it to run 

 matter. In severe forms they cause a swelling of the sur- 

 rounding parts, producing erysipelas or blood poisoning. 

 All this can be prevented or overcome by applying clean 

 or antiseptic dressings. 



Milk, in summer time, forms a good soil in which germs 

 from the air grow and form acids and other poisons. 

 They produce stomach and intestinal disease in bottle-fed 

 babies. Boiling the milk and bottles destroys the bacteria 

 and prevents the disease. 



693. Tuberculosis. Almost the first disease of which 

 bacteria were proved to be the cause was tuberculosis of the 

 lungs, or consumption. The discovery was made by Rob- 

 ert Koch, a German physician, in 1881. He found that 

 the germs which are always present in the tissues of a con- 

 sumptive can be grown in a bottle of blood serum, and will 

 multiply to an unlimited extent when small amounts from 

 one bottle are planted in another. He also found that 

 artificially grown bacteria will produce tuberculosis when 

 they are injected into a healthy animal. 



Though the cause of consumption was determined before that of 

 most other infectious diseases, yet consumption is among the last of these 



