Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The atmosphere in relation to human life and health. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![spntniii itself of C()Msuiiii)ti\'(is, inny infe(;t liealthy persons, l)ut mostly tli(>se who have some tissue delicacy or i>i'edis])ositioii. lint another very(;omnion cause, especially in thclargely fatal tuberculosis of infants, is the use of milk from infected cows. Now, these cows are themselv^es diseased Ihrougii media veiy similar to thosi; which disarm the human subject, rebreathcil foul air and dirty places; in fact, want of cleanli- ness, arid, above all, want of fresh air. Well-ventilated cow sheds, and immediate separation of sick animals, prevent the spread of tuberculosis among cows; thus children are saved from the danger of tuberculous milk. The breath of the con- sumptive in well-ventilated rooms may be considered harndess. Animals have been infected by breathing the dust of sputum dissem- iiuited in the air, and no doubt the same mode of infection is very common among mankind, but only in close association with the sick or in stuffy apartments. The State board of health of oNIaine has issued valuable instructions to i)revent the practice of expectoration except in spittoons, which may be wooden or pasteboard, and should either be burned daily or cleansed Avith boiling water and potash soa^). The reduction of consumption by such means and by better regard for ventilation is not only probable, but certain. In England the death rate has considerably declined with sanitation. From 1851 to 18G0 it was 2,G79 per million per annum. In 1888 it was 1,541. In New Hampshire, United States, the deaths from the several diseases named were as follows: From 1881 to 1888, consumption, 4,039; diphtheria and croup, 98,); ty])hoid, 750; scarlatina, 187; measles, 100; whoop- ing cough, 109; smallpox, 2. Here the very large proportion of deaths due to consumption, and the importance of effecting a reduction, are strikingly shown; but a similar ])roportion exhibits itself in every thickly inhabited State, both in Europe and America. Booms occupied by consumptives should be j)eriodically disinfected and always kept clean. The danger is there, but it can be averted. The experience of the Brompton Hospital shows that with jiroper hygienic precautions cases of infection from patients are very rare. Koch has shown that enormous multitudes of bacilli may be distributed on the ground and in the air from only one patient, and how infection is explained by their long survival in a moist or dry state. Cornet showed how the walls and carpets, cornices, etc., retain them still potentially virulent. Thus certain houses remain for a long while centers of infection, and newcomers are attacked out of all propor- tion to the cases among neighboring uninfected dwellings. Prisons, barracks, etc., w4iich when crowded and badly ventilated were very fatally affected with consumption have been rendered whole- some by thorough ventilation and greater cleanliness. Out of an average prison population of 4,807 in the year 1890 in England, only 9 died of i)hthisis, excluding cases in which sick prisoners were removed home.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21208724_0067.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
