66 DUST AND ITS DANGERS. 



If this be true, that tuberculosis is spread 

 by the breathing in of tubercle bacilli in the 

 dust of the air, then, it may be said, we ought 

 to be able to find these particular germs in 

 the dust of rooms inhabited by consumptives. 

 This is by no means an easy task, because our 

 means of identifying this germ are rather com- 

 plex, and require for their execution much time 

 and skill. But notwithstanding this, Cornet, 

 in Berlin, has over and over again, in the dust 

 high up on the walls of consumptive wards of 

 hospitals, in the dust of private houses, and 

 hotel rooms occupied by consumptive patients, 

 found living virulent tubercle bacilli. But he 

 found these only in cases in which the dis- 

 charged sputum was not carefully and at once 

 destroyed, but was permitted to lodge upon 

 floors or clothing or articles of furniture, where 

 it dried and finally became pulverized and car- 

 ried as dust to such parts of the room as are 

 not ordinarily cleaned. 



Again, some one will say : " If it be true that 

 consumption is apt to be acquired by breathing 

 in of the bacilli with the dust, then we ought 

 to find in the lungs of persons who have died 



