GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 28 1 



parts of the body, producing other diseases, such as scrofula, 

 hip disease, etc. Consumption must be guarded against 

 by destroying the sputum of patients and avoiding their 

 breath while coughing; and in any form of the disease 

 that produces open sores, the discharges from such sores 

 must be carefully destroyed. In spite of the long-accepted 

 belief, consumption is not hereditary, but is contagious. 

 Its spread through families is due to the close association 

 of patients with the other members of the family. It is 

 a disease associated with small rooms, poor ventilation, 

 and crowded houses where the healthy members of the 

 family live with consumptive patients and frequently sleep 

 with them. Under such conditions contagion is almost 

 sure, and the disease spreads from person to person just 

 as decay spreads from apple to apple in a barrel. More 

 air, more light, more care of the sputum and other dis- 

 charges, greater attention given to guarding against the 

 coughing of the patient, as for example inducing him to 

 cough into cloths that can be burned, — these are the 

 remedies against the spread of the contagion, and strict 

 attention to these facts would soon convince any one that 

 the disease is not hereditary but due to infectious matter 

 disseminated from the patient. The child of a consump- 

 tivBt mother may even nurse at his mother's breast with 

 little danger of contagion; but sleeping with her and 

 breathing her breath while she is coughing is very likely 

 to give him the disease and lead to the erroneous belief 

 that he inherited it from his mother. 



