49S 
EDITORIAL. 
'be said of the microbe or streptococcus of erysepela. And for 
diphtheria, Roux has demonstrated the frequent survie (?) of 
the specific bacillus in the mouth and nasal fossae of convalescent 
children or of those that have recovered, and again the common 
presence of the same bacillus, virulent or not, in the throat of 
healthy children, examined in a healthy center and never having 
had diphtheria. All those germ carriers were already known, 
and yet the idea still prevailed generally that pathogenous 
microbes do not live beyond the disease that they give rise to, al¬ 
though it is not so. Scarlatina patients remain contagious for 
several weeks after the complete return of health. Typhoids re¬ 
covered since months and more, may after this time have sup¬ 
purative lesions due to the typhical bacillus. With malaria, is 
not very often its recovery only apparent and cannot for a long 
time its parasite remain asleep in some organ, principally the 
spleen, to suddenly return with a new infection from mosquitos? 
The recent observations of the German school have widened 
the scope of our knowledge in that direction in showing the rela¬ 
tive frequency in healthy subjects of the specific germ of typhoid 
fever, cerebro-spinal meningitis, cholera, dysenteric and acute 
poliomyelitis or the disease of Heine-Medin. Veterinary pathol¬ 
ogists have also brought forward facts which affirm the interfer¬ 
ence of these healthy germ carriers in the transmission of some 
infectious diseases of animals. 
These germ carriers do exist and from that a natural conse¬ 
quence prevails, a new and necessary direction in the prophylaxy 
with the complementary measures that these facts imply. 
* 
* * 
The question, continues Dr. Vaillard, may present itself 
“ How can one become a germ carrier?” 
As, after all, the answer applies to animals as well as to hu¬ 
man beings, let us look at it as one applicable to a point of view 
of comparative pathology, as certainly the conditions are alike 
for both man and beasts. 
