CONSUMPTION. 165 



evidence of contagion no account is taken of the anti- 

 hygienic influences to which the individuals had been 

 subjected or of the probability of a common or inde- 

 pendent source of hereditary transmission or of the 

 predisposition or the actual disease acquired previously. 

 Against the few facts which tend to support the doc- 

 trine of contagion there are tens of thousands against 

 it/ Dr. Aufrecht, after referring somewhat exten- 

 sively to the contagion theory, says: * * * 'and 

 less justifiable are the reckless conclusions drawn by 

 Koch concerning the etiological indication of the tuber- 

 cle bacillus/ Dr. Dettweiler writes of the freedom 

 from phthisis of those who are engaged in the care 

 of the phthisical in hospitals, and then says: 'My 

 own fourteen years' experience in hospitals for con- 

 sumption is in perfect accord with this/ The late 

 Dr. Hermann Brehmer, the founder of the large and 

 world-renowned hospital for consumptives in Gorbers- 

 dorf, Germany, and who has done so much to place the 

 treatment of consumption on a scientific basis, opposed 

 the contagion theory of this disease most strenuously. 

 Dr. Arthur Kansome declares that 'at the present time 

 the dread of infection from consumptive persons is out 

 of all proportion to the danger, and goes far beyond 

 what the facts of the case justify. In its results this 

 alarm is likely to cause much injustice to many poor 

 invalids, and in some cases to endanger their pros- 

 pects of cure. The sites for consumption hospitals 

 are becoming as difficult to find as those for smallpox 

 hospitals, and utterly unfounded reports as to the 

 spread of phthisis by such institutions are recklessly 



