Proceedings of the quarter-centennial celebration of the establishment of the Michigan State Board of Health : held at Detroit, Michigan, August 9, 1898.

Michigan. State Board of Health

Date:: 1898

Credit: Proceedings of the quarter-centennial celebration of the establishment of the Michigan State Board of Health : held at Detroit, Michigan, August 9, 1898. 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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$gornis and {^erniiddes, drawn from the store of faets developed bv sani- tary work, to snr<>:ical jirocediire, to invite attention to tlie even more biilliant results that havelollowed the like r(‘conrs(* to Prof(*ssor Lister’s, by nu'dical practitioners. The brilliancy of tlu* surf^ical results is more apjtarent because it is moi'e easilv (hmionsti-atc'd than the results of medicjil j)ractic(‘. In 1S72 RoIlinf>;er demonsti’ated the j»resence of s])oi*es in the bacillus anthracis. Ib* also showed that if blood from a cow atfected with splenic fever wcne kept for some time, the rods disa])i»eared. but the blood still retained its viriihmce. This viiulence he attributed to tlu* prescmce of spores, which, thou<,di remaining; inactive under conditions unfavorable to th(> exist(‘uc(' of the anthrax bacillus, still retained their vitality; and by the r(*cnrrence of comlitions favorable to their develojunent they as- sumed tin* form of tin* bacillus and wei(* then capable of setting up the disea.se. He |)ointed out the inipf)rtant bearing; of this retaiiu'd vitality of j;erm spores on the question of infection of tin* soil; and, by indicating that the so-called e|)idemic diseases were due to the fact that the condi- tions w(M‘(* favorable or otluu-wise—juu-hajis inlei'mitt(‘ntly—for the Ifrowth and developnuml of anthray organisms, he not only discovtu’ed the etiology of llutse diseases, but, by ])ointing out the conditions under which the vitality of their germs were maintaim'd, he displayed the feasibility of preventing or stamping out such diseases by sanitary work. ( losely r»*lat<*d iu substance to Bollinger's discovmw wer(' Dr. (leoi'ge M. Sternberg’s observations on the soil in Xew Orleans, as re]>orted bv him to the National Board of Health in ISSl. “The fact observ(*d by myself,’ he says, “that during the summer months the mud in the gut- ters of _Xew Orleans ]»ossesses an extI'aordinarv degia'e of virulence, shows that i)athogenic varieties of bacteria are not alone bred in the bodies of living animals. The more I study this subject the more prob- able it s(*ems to me that in this dir(*ction lies the explanation of many problems which have puzzled the epidemiologists, and that tin* sanitari- ans are right in fighting against tiltli as a j)rinv(* factor in the jiroduction of e])id(*mics—a factor of which the role is (*asily umbu'stood, if this A’iew is correct. The ])res('uce of se]>tic organisms poss«'ssing ditferent degrees of virulence, depending u})on the abundance and kind of pajuilum furnished them, and u])on meteorological conditions more* or less favor- able, proves, in my oi)inion, the ei)idemic constitution of the atmos])here, which wise men were wont to s]>eak of a few years ago as a cloak for ignorance. It must be remembered that tlu‘ gutter mud of today, with its deadly septic organisms, is the dust of tomorrow, which in resjiiration is deposited upon the mucous membrane of the I'ospii’atory jtassages of those who breathe the air loaded with it.” ^loreover, foremost in sanitary work for the time being, in the fpiarter- century of our contention, was that as a whole, which the paragraj)!! just above (juoted brings to mind, tlu' work of the National Board of Health during the period of its active existence, 1S7!»-81. How earnestly and succc'ssfully it battled with and stamped out the ytdlow fever in Mem])his and Xew Orleans is ]»opulai- history. But this was but a mere item of its work. It ])romplly revis(>d the situatidn and a])i>ointments of the quarantines of the Soiithei-n Atlantic and Oulf (’oast hai-bors; estab- lished I'ofuge stations for infected v(‘.vsels; instituted sanitary inspection of vess(*ls, railway coac'hes and jau-sons at infected ])oi-ts and ])laces of$