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. 914.—Bacilli in vke sp tiv jent: A, bacilli, either isolated 
(a) or in the epithelial @) a pigmented @ cells "Se the lung; B, numerous 
bacilli, no the sp Stained by Ehrlich’s process with 
methyl violet (much oe moll 
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 Pitié. 
“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 
11 
