252 BACTERIA, YEASTS, AND MOLDS 



microscopic animals and plants in our blood, muscles, or 

 elsewhere. They cannot be warded off by simply disbe- 

 lieving in their existence, and the sooner the housewife 

 learns that a contagious disease is due to distinct living 

 beings which are transported from one person to another 

 and live as parasites in the patient, the sooner will she be 

 in a position to protect her family from the spread of 

 contagion. 



GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



Each type of infectious disease must be fought in its 

 own way. The so-called children's diseases are so decidedly 

 contagious that isolation alone is capable of preventing 

 their distribution. Of the adult diseases, however, the 

 most serious may be largely checked by proper means. 

 Smallpox must be fought with vaccination and isolation, 

 diphtheria by antitoxin and isolation, typhoid fever by 

 a guard placed over the water and the milk supplies, 

 malaria by destroying the breeding places of mosquitoes 

 and protecting oneself from mosquito bites. 



Of all diseases, however, tuberculosis is most widespread 

 and demands most attention. The common form of this 

 disease is consumption, but the bacteria may attack other 

 parts of the body, producing other diseases, such as scrofula, 

 hip disease, etc. Consumption must be guarded against 

 by destroying the sputum of patients and avoiding their 

 breath while coughing, and in any form of the disease 

 that produces open sores the discharges from the sores 

 must be carefully destroyed. In spite of the long-accepted 

 belief, consumption is not hereditary but is contagious. 

 Its spread through families is due to the close association 



