On the limits of the infectiveness of tubercle. A lecture, introductory to the course on public health and hygiene at the Owens College, Manchester, May 19th, 1884 / by A. Ransome.

  • Ransome, Arthur, 1834-1922.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the limits of the infectiveness of tubercle. A lecture, introductory to the course on public health and hygiene at the Owens College, Manchester, May 19th, 1884 / by A. Ransome. 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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    weather, and cold; but these conditions might rather be characterised as being antagonistic than favourable to the onset of the disease. The poor fishermen of Iceland and the hunters and traj)pers of North America, the nomad tribes of Asia and Africa, the wretched natives of Australia, aU these people escape the disease almost entirely, whilst half the deaths of the weU-protected, well-clothed adult inhabitants of towns are from this cause. The Highlanders who inhabit well-buUt houses on the mainland of Scotland are subject to the same rate as the other inhabitants; whilst the ill-fed, ill-clothed fishermen of the Hebrides, who are of the same race, hardly ever con- tract the disease. I may say that Dr. Morgan, who wrote a paper on this subject twenty-four years ago (Brit. & For. Med. Chir. Eev., vol. xsvi., p. 483), ascribes the escape of these people also in some measure to the antiseptic properties of the peat smoke. A striking case under this head is quoted by Dr. H. Beunet from Professor Hind : Consumption, he says, is unknown amongst the natives of Labrador whilst they remain in their own country. Here they live a kind of wild life in tents made of spruce branches, imperfectly lined with skins, and more or less open on all sides to the air. They are exposed to famine and all kinds of hardship ; but when they come down the great Eiver St. Lawrence to take part in the fisheries, they occupy well-built houses, and, being well paid, they live in comparative luxury, and then many of them, in the course of a year or two, become consumptive, and thus miserably perish. 5. Certain occupations have also ranked amongst the causes of phthisis, especially those carried on indoors, or accom- panied by dusts of various kinds, or carried on in a stooping
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