The origin of zymotic diseases / by F.A. Cooper.

  • Cooper, F.A.
Date:
[1897?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The origin of zymotic diseases / by F.A. Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    insect it may be brought in contact with,' so that when typhus is allowed to get a start, there is no telling what virulent plague the race may at any time be afflicted with. Typhoid, cholera, diphtheria, and, it appears, all oilier zymotic germs except typhus, feed on the epithelial linings of the cells and the gelatinous parts which form the frame- work of the body; the typhus germ on the nitrogen-starved ■contents of the cells themselves ; the plague germs feed on both; hence plagues are rapidly fatal; typhus leaves no sequalie—for the framework of the body remains intact, and ■other zymotic diseases are all liable to be followed by more or less serious complaints—often life-long burdens; this accounts for the treatment of the latter diseases by physicians, more or less unconsciously, being an attempt at the nitrogen starvation of the germ; while people fed on nitrogenous food, say a fair amount of digestible j)ulse (beans, peas, lentils, etc.), and whose framework remained ealthy, would never be subject to any plague epidemic; but ])£!' contra any patient as now ordinarily treated for typhoid fever who became exposed to typhus germs during the treatment would be dead certain to get plague. Finally, that we are dealing with primeval elements is certain, from the fact of these germs crossing in the way they do ; we get, not a mule, as we should do from different species, but a highly fertile and vigorous offspring—there being nothiiig more vigorous or fertile than pla;gue germs ; according to Charles Darwin (Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. II.,page 158) “Abundant evidence has
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