The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin.

  • Charles V. Chapin
Date:
1912
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    the fever may be spread to some extent by contact with infected urine either of goats or of men, just as typhoid fever frequently extends by contact infection, but the fact that thousands of infected men have been invalided home to England without any extension of the disease in that country would indicate that such occurrence is extremely rare. Bubonic Plague. — The germ of bubonic plague is not so resistant as is that of typhoid fever, nor yet is it of such feeble vitality as that of cholera. It is rather susceptible to disin- fectants, to high temperature and to drying, but in a moist condition, particularly at low or moderate temperatures, may remain alive for some months.1 The endemicity of the dis- ease in many localities has led some to assume that it devel- ops in the soil, but the most careful students see no necessity for assuming soil infection to account for its diffusion, and there is ample positive evidence that plague is derived from other sources. Yet, in view of the fact that soil infection has been so much discussed, it is rather remarkable that so few actual experiments have been made to test the theory. Perhaps it is because such experiments are difficult and those who are most competent to make them have thought their time better occupied with work giving better promise of positive results. Elliot2 found that soil naturally infected would cause the disease in rats after an interval of a month, and Watkins-Pitchford 3 in some careful experiments found that inoculated soil retained its virulence for four weeks but not for five weeks. The soil was not sterilized. Gladm found the bacillus alive in unsterile moist earth after 2 ' Rosenau, U. S. Pub. Health and Mar. Hosp. Serv. Hyg. Lab. Bull. No. 4, 1901. See also Simpson, A Treatise on Plague. 2 Elliot, Lancet, Lond., 1905, I, 1562. _ 3 Watkins-Pitchford, Rep. Gov. Bacteriologist, Pietermantzburg, 1903 [Report on Plague, 31]. * Gladin, Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. [etc.], I, Abt. Ong., Jena, 1898, XXIV, 588.