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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![and cliill in the body, especially when feeble or fatigued, are main fac- tors. As in so many other maladies, the sjteeific cause in rheumatic fever may be the entrance of a micrococcus or other germ by means of a chill, either in hot or cold weather. An inquiry into the distribution of rheiinuitism, with regard especially to soil, climate, air, and dwell- ings, and eliminating as far as i)Ossible predisposing human habits, would furnish results of much value. There is some indication, as in the case of malaria, that air near the ground in low places has much to do with the incidence of the disease. Damp dwellings and clothes conduce to an attack, and to the chronic form. It seems very probable that it would be found that persons removed from ground air, as in the attics of high buildings, are exempt from attack, excei)t through food and drink. MEASLES AND WHOOPINa COUGH. Measles and whooping cough are spread chiefly through the air to persons in the immediate neighborhood of the sick, and of articles, especially clothing, which have been exposed to the infective matter. Segregation, ventilation, and avoidance and disinfection of materials which may disseminate the disease are effective in prevention, where they can be carried out. In the early stage of measles, as of influenza, even while the symptoms are slight, the germs of the disease may infect through the air, and therefore measures of precaution are difficult. The best preventives against widespread and severe attacks are habitual (regard for sufficient air space and warmth and immediate isolation, DENGUE. Dengue is a disease somewhat resembling influenza in its symptoms, but i)revalent only as an occasional epidemic in tropical countries. It is apparently spread by infection in the air from case to case, but not through the general atmosphere. The reason of its failure to extend beyond hot climates is quite obscure, but it would seem as if it required, like yellow fever, a high temperature outside the body in order to grow and disseminate germs fitted for infection. SMALLPOX. Smallpox has been ascertained by several careful investigations to be capable of passing through long distances, at least half a mile or a mile, of fresh air without losing its power of infecting susceptible per- sons. The ex]3erience of hospitals in London and Paris is well known. Kecent observations on the spread of smallpox from a hospital near Leicester, containing 49 jiatients, showed that a number of cases which occurred in a suburb about 300 yards distant were in all probability due to transport by the wind. The epithelial scales and dust of smallpox cases are rather peculiarly protected from atmospheric influences, and the conditions of the survival of exposed germs need inquiry.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21208724_0079.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
