The prevention of consumption : a mode of prevention founded on a new theory of the nature of the tubercle-bacillus / by C. Candler.

  • Candler, C.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The prevention of consumption : a mode of prevention founded on a new theory of the nature of the tubercle-bacillus / by C. Candler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Professor Jaccoud believe this that he interdicts maternal suckling even when the mother is health}^ and the father onl}' the subject of phthisis, in the fear that the wife may contract the disease from the husband and contaminate the milk. On the whole, therefore, consumptives in some parts of Europe would seem to have been subjected of late to at least as vigorous measures as they were in former days. In this country, the 'profession generally have looked askance at this hideous prophylaxis, though some physicians have shown a disposition to adopt it. The Lancet, how- ever, though it had an acute perception of the rare worth of Koch's work, and led ,the van in handsomely acknow- ledging his grand discovery, suggested caution in drawing conclusions {Lancet, April 29, 1882); and the faculty here have remained so cautious that up to this time, whatever may be the views of some physicians, it has not been seriously contemplated to move the State to pass enactments to stamp out tuberculosis on the Viennese or any other Continental lines. Thanks, perhaps, to certain wary qualities and certain social considerations, the British schools have not been driven into accepting all the logical consequences of the proof of the bacillary cause of phthisis. Here and there, no doubt, one may come across an enthu- siastic contagionist of .strong convictions, who, if he had his way, would soon have coercive laws to eradicate phthisis and tuberculosis that should not disgrace the Doetoren- Collegium. However, the general conclusion that there must be something defective in the theory which has been the outcdmo of Koch's discovery—the theory that ]i]itlnsi.s is invariably, or ])rinci))ally, caused by a transmission of the bacilhis frDin piM-son to person—has saved British coiiinuinitios hitlicrto. For the faculty as a whole have shrewdly elected to await fui'thor developments before