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 
beeause the microbe is anaérobic, 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. 
