THE MICROBES OF HUMAN DISEASES. 227 



of boiling the milk used for food, especially in the 

 case of children, at any rate when the source is un- 

 known.* 



Phthisis is, as we know, a slow disease, probably 

 because the microbe is anaerobic, and lives within the 

 cellular tissue, not in the blood, which it merely tra- 

 verses. The slow progress of the disease explains the 

 cases of spontaneous cure effected by the expulsion of 

 the microbe in the sputum, or by the tubercles passing 

 into a cretaceous condition, which causes the destruc- 

 tion of the bacteria encysted in them. Hence also 

 the fact that all the causes which weaken the consti- 

 tution, bad food, overwork, inflammatory diseases, 

 pregnancy, etc., hasten the end of consumptive per- 

 sons. Those who are attacked by the disease may, 

 if rich enough to live in the South, and to follow 

 with care the hygienic prescriptions of the physician, 

 often attain an advanced age, in spite of the lesions 

 which remain latent in the organism, provided also 

 they commit no imprudence in the matter of diet. 



It is therefore important to maintain the strength 

 of consumptive patients by tonics, by a nourishing diet, 

 and by an hygiene as strictly protective as possible. 

 The good effects of creosote, of sulphur waters, etc., 

 are due, as in diphtheria, to the attenuation of the 



* This precaution is equally efficacious to ward off typhoid fever. 

 In several epidemics of this disease, and especially in England, inquiry 

 has shown that milk was the vehicle of contagion, either from the 

 water with which it was adulterated, or from that which was used 

 to wash the vessels in which it was placed. 



