

Zymotic and Germ Diseases. 265 



and sunlight. The exhalations and emanations arising from the new soil which must 

 consist chiefly of organic matters in various stages of decomposition, and, what is more 

 to the point, of recomposition, all go under the general title of malaria or miasm. There 

 must be, however, different varieties of malaria. At any rate there are different forms 

 of fevers which depend on malaria for their exciting cause. Some of these may be due 

 to modification of and development from intermittent fever. What is called pernicious 

 or malignant intermittent fever prevails at times in malarial districts and is apparently 

 an intensified form of the intermittent. In plain intermittent there is frequently an en- 

 largement of the spleen, and sometimes in prolonged cases this becomes permanent 

 and so prominent that it can be felt from the outside of the body. It is called ague cake. 

 In the pernicious type of the fever the spleen is liable to become enlarged, and occasion- 

 ally a black pigment is found in the blood. Another form or derivative of the intermit- 

 tent, is the Remittent fever. In intermittent fever there are cessations or intermissions 

 in which there is no fever. In the remittent the fever does not stop, but only slackens up 

 and becomes less intense. 



These two are said to be mutually convertible into each other. Simple remittent fever 

 is not usually dangerous. It is characterized by pigment granules in the blood and in the 

 spleen, liver, and marrow of the bones. In the mild form of the disease there is but little 

 of this pigment, but it is present in quantities in the violent forms. In some cases the 

 coloring matter is found in the brain, especially in the gray matter. The pigment of 

 Melansemia, as this blood coloring is called, it is agreed by physicians, is formed out of 

 the coloring matter of the red blood-corpuscles (Flint). Typhoid fever may be present 

 with remittent at the same time in the same patient, and it preserves its characteristic 

 symptoms of intestinal ulcerations, &c. When the disease is complicated thus, it is 

 called typho- malarial fever. 



Milk sickness. This disease has been prevalent in many districts in 

 the states between the Alleghany mountains and the Mississippi river, and I suppose is 

 .still occasionally experienced. It originates with cattle, horses and sheep which graze 

 in some particular localities; especially from grazing in them at night. But what they 

 eat that gives it to them no one has ever found out. While one particular hillside, bot- 

 tom or meadow may originate the disease, another locality close by may be quite free 

 from it. As a general rule, plowing, cultivating and raising crops on an infected spot 

 has banished the noxious element, whatever it is. Cows giving milk usually escape but 

 the milk is so poisoned that their calves, and any other animals using the milk, includ- 

 ing man, are liable to the disease. Likewise a slut giving milk may escape, while her 

 pups will contract the disease. Carnivorous animals, and man, acquire the disease by 

 eating the milk, butter, cheese or flesh of diseased animals, which they may do quite 

 unwittingly. The hides of animals which die from the disease are specially poisonous, 

 and when nibbled by rats and mice are as fatal to them as ratsbane. The infectiousness 

 of the flesh is not destroyed by boiling, nor does the water in which it is boiled become 

 affected showing that it is not a soluble poison. 



The mortality among men in this disease is about forty per cent. " After death the 

 spleen is found dark and congested, the brain softened and the blood uncoagulated." 

 " The disease appears to be a modified form of cerebro spinal meningitis, the only differ- 

 ence being the less strongly marked cerebral manifestations and the more diffluent 

 blood." ( Neil and Smith, Practice of Medicine.) 



Dysentery, as a sporadic disease, is tolerably well known to almost 

 everyone. It consists of inflammation of the mucous membrane of the large intestine, 

 particularly the colon and rectum, with fever, and mucous or bloody discharges from the 

 bowels. The discharges often contain fragments of mucous membrane, rotten and gan- 

 grenous ; and also large numbers of bacteria. The disease occurs chiefly in the summer 

 and fall, and oftener in warm climates than cold. Its cause is thought to be miasmatic. 

 Sporadic cases are generally manageable, but the disease may become epidemic and it 

 is then more malignant. The intestinal ulcerations may cause perforation of the intes- 

 tinal walls. It is apt to become epidemic in armies, and other crowded bodies of men, 

 in hot weather. As an epidemic it is infectious, and the characteristic inflammations 

 are caused by an agent from without. Emanations from the dejections no doubt assist 

 in the propagation and continuance of the disease when started. Large numbers of bac- 

 teria, and sometimes infusoria and fungus spores, are found in the excrementitious mat- 

 ters. But these organisms are found in so many states of disease, and even health, that 

 it is not safe to predicate anything upon them. They may have something to do with 

 the propagation of the disease, or they may be only an effect of it. Some doctors have 

 supposed that the intestinal excreta contain a virus, by means of which the disease may 



