THE MICROBES OF HUMAN DISEASES. 



225 



Now that this is known, it is easy to explain the 

 facts of direct contagion which are so frequent among 

 people living together, and especially from a husband 

 to a wife, or conversely. Since the breath of a con- 

 sumptive patient is always charged with germs of 

 the microbe, which abound in the cavities in which 



Fig. 9lA.-Bacilli in the cputum of a consumptive patient: A, bacilli, either isolated 

 (a) or in the epithelial (6) and pigmented (c) cells of the lung ; B, numerous 

 bacilli, masked together in the sputum. Stained by Ehrlich's process with 

 methyl violet (much enlarged). 



the sputum is formed, it could not possibly be other- 

 wise. The following statements of facts are taken from 

 Debove's clinical lectures at the Hospital de la Pitie. 



"Jean, a tuberculous patient, was married to 

 Antoinette, a young woman with no previous tendency 

 to tuberculosis. Jean died, and his wife became 

 phthisical. She was remarried to Louis, who had 

 likewise no phthisical taint; Louis and Antoinette 

 both died of phthisis. The niece of the latter, equally 

 without phthisical taint, contracted the disease in 

 nursing her aunt, then married, and her husband was 



