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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![wliicli b(']()iij;s to fnii,u()i(l growtli. When invested with food, and even wiieu breathed with the air, it causes the disease. The air of that part of a town which was subject to diarrhea lias been proved to con- tain germs wliicli cause the disease, and to (;ontain 1{,()0() to 7,((()() bac- teria and micrococci in the cubic meter. The deatlis in tliis part of tlie town, containing one-third of the population, were 21G out of a total of 25(). The remedies for diarrhea are principally draining (he ground to a considerable depth, paving, ventihitioii of dwellings and of i)laces where milk and food are ke})t with air from some height above ground, cleanliness generally, and a good water supply. Cows, faim- yaids, and dairies need sindlar attention. Diarrhea is much less common among the Irish population of laige towns, owing to their infants being almost invariably suckled by their mothers and not from the bottle. The general air soon nullifies the danger from strata near the infected ground, and the germ seems to be incapable of enduring con- veyance in a potent state through any (considerable distance in the free atmosphere. TYPHOID FEVER. Typhoid fever, like cholera and diarrhea, depends to a great extent on the growth and cultivation in neglected human refuse by human agency (unwilling but effectual) of germs which thrive in damp, pol- luted soil or in foul water. Warmth and exclusion from free air favor the development of the bacillus, supposed to be the cause of typhoid. It can grow, however, in the presence of free oxygen, and then develops the saprophytic habit and great resistant power. In direct sunlight it is killed in six to seven hours, and in diffuse daylight growth is very slow. The mode of entrance of typhoid is both through air and water contaminated with the products of the intestinal discharges of persons sick with the disease. During twenty years preceding 1883, the average annual number of i)ersons who died of typhoid in England was about 13,000, the number of those who suffered from it about 130,000. In many conti- nental cities, tlie proportion is much higher. Although bad water accounts for a large number of cases, bad air, the emanations from drains through defective traps and waste pipes, also infects in very many instances. Eecent experiments of great interest have shown that sewer air is capable of so poisoning the system as to lay it open to the attacks of the typhoid bacillus, which is doubtless frequently present either in the foul air or in the intestines. In this way many outbreaks are cansed by the coml)ined influence of drain air and spe- cific microbes. The condition of farmyards near dairies whence milk is supplied to cities is too often so filthy that both air and water are poisoned. Milk has a remarkable power of absorbing gases and vapors, and is also a cultivating medium of various fungi and bacteria. Typhoid germs, Uke so many others, are soon rendered innocuous by](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21208724_0073.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
