American Veterinary Review. 
AUGUST, 1912. 
EDITORIAL. 
EUROPEAN CHRONICLES. 
Paris, June 15, 1912. 
Germ Carriers in Epidemiology.— Generally speaking, it 
is believed that the individual affected with transmissible disease 
constitutes alone , as long* as the affection lasts, a source of con¬ 
tagion, either directly or indirectly through the objects or media 
which he has soiled with its morbid products. On this principle 
our current measures of prophylaxy are based. 
Such, Dr.. Vaillard, general medical inspector of the Army, 
has written in the Revue ScienliHque and he has added: To this 
traditional notice, another must now be added. Sound, healthy 
subjects, showing at least all the appearances of health, may hold 
back in them the virus of an infectious disease, spread it and 
propagate it unknown to all in the surroundings where they live. 
Every general system of defensive protection finds in this an un¬ 
foreseen breach/ whose importance must neither be overlooked 
' nor exaggerated. 
To those healthy subjects, able to propagate a disease of 
which they show none of the symptoms, the name of germ car¬ 
riers is today given, a new word whose notion is rather old, as 
* indeed it was already known that the microbe of pneumonia of 
man can persist for a long time in the mouth of subjects who 
have recovered and may sometimes remain as virulent for those 
who have never been affected with that disease. The same can 
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