386 Tuberculosis 



tuberculous infection in the households under his care. 

 To this end patients should cease to kiss the members of 

 their families and friends; should have individual knives, 

 forks, spoons, cups, napkins, etc., carefully kept apart 

 secretly if the patient be sensitive upon the subject from 

 those of the family, and scalded after each meal; should 

 have their napkins and handkerchiefs, as well as whatever 

 clothing or bed-clothing is soiled by them, kept apart from 

 the common wash, and boiled ; and should carefully 

 collect the expectoration in a suitable receptacle, that is 

 sterilized or disinfected, without being permitted to dry, as 

 it has been shown that the tubercle bacillus can remain 

 alive in dried sputum as long as nine months. The phy- 

 sician should also give directions for disinfecting the 

 bedroom occupied by a consumptive before it becomes 

 the chamber of a healthy person, though this should be 

 as much the function of the municipality as the disin- 

 fection practised after scarlatina, diphtheria, and smallpox. 



Boards of health are now becoming more and more in- 

 terested in tuberculosis, and, though exceedingly slow and 

 conservative in their movements, are disseminating litera- 

 ture with the hope of achieving by volition that which might 

 otherwise be regarded as cruel compulsion. 



So long as tuberculosis exists among men or cattle, it 

 shows that existing hygienic precautions are insufficient. 

 While condemning any unreasonable isolation of patients, 

 I favor the registration of tuberculous cases as a means of 

 collecting accurate data concerning their origin ; insist upon 

 the careful domestic sterilization and disinfection of all 

 articles used by the patients ; recommend public disinfection 

 of the houses they cease to occupy; and approve of special 

 hospitals for as many, especially of the poorer classes, among 

 whom hygienic measures are almost always opposed, as can 

 be persuaded to occupy them. 



BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 



BACILLUS TUBERCULOSIS Bovis. 



The tuberculous diseases of the lower animals and espe- 

 cially cattle have lesions closely resembling those of human 

 tuberculosis, and containing bacilli similar both in morphol- 

 ogy and in staining reaction to those found in human 



