142 THE MORE CHRONIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES 



sputum. The sputum must, of course, dry before it 

 is pulverized into dust by walking on it or sweeping 

 it. The dust arising from soiled handkerchiefs or 

 cloths is likewise a danger. Park says that as many as 

 5,000,000,000 tubercle bacilli may be expectorated by 

 a consumptive person in twenty-four hours. Since the 

 ordinary uneducated consumptive is very careless of 

 his expectoration, the danger is obvious. The great 

 movement against the "white plague" now active 

 throughout the world is rapidly correcting the habits 

 of careless patients. 



Tuberculosis may also be transmitted by the infec- 

 tion of food in the soiled hands of patients, or flies 

 may feed upon sputum and carry the germs upon 

 their body. The study of the transmission of tuber- 

 culosis from the cow to the human being has now 

 progressed to a point near solution. Koch said that 

 the bovine form of tuberculosis is not contracted by 

 the human being. This is true for tuberculosis of the 

 lungs, but children are susceptible to the bovine form, 

 and it affects them in the glands of the neck and of 

 the abdominal cavity. Cows may give off tubercle 

 bacilli in their milk even when there is very slight 

 evidence of the disease in their body. 



The tubercle bacillus may be eliminated from the 

 human body by the feces, and health authorities are 

 requiring the disinfection of sewage from sanatoria. 

 Tuberculosis is very rarely hereditary, but children born 

 of tuberculous parents are not quite as robust as chil- 

 dren born of non-tuberculous persons, and therefore 

 they more easily contract the disease from the sur- 

 roundings contaminated by ill parents. 



