Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/490

 but they are mingled with discharges which may be removed, and as matter of course are removed, before the germs can pass off from them into the surrounding atmosphere. The seat of the propagation of the typhoid-poison has no direct relation with this atmosphere; germs can not pass directly from the one to the other; the disease, therefore, does not display the property of contagiousness.

The danger in typhoid fever is not contact with the person of the sufferer, but contact with his stools. If these are properly managed and disposed of, the disease can scarcely spread. But, if they are allowed to pass into drains which are imperfectly trapped, inadequately ventilated, or insufficiently flushed, or if they are carelessly thrown on the ground, or allowed to percolate through the soil into drinking water, then one case of typhoid fever may give rise to many others. The occurrence of a case of typhoid fever in a house is a sharp test of the efficiency of its sanitary arrangements. If these are perfect, and the stools properly managed, all will go well; if they are defective, one case may give rise to many others. But the communication of the disease is not direct, by contact; it is indirect, by infection of drinking water, or of an atmosphere which may be remote from the person who is the source of the poison. A case of typhoid fever is introduced into a locality. The stools are thrown out on the ground or into a cesspool, whence they percolate through the soil into a well. The person who drinks water from that well runs a greater risk than one who sleeps in the same room as the sufferer and is in constant attendance on him.

The practical outcome of all this is—1. That the mother may nurse her son, the wife her husband, the sister her brother, without the risk involved in the case of typhus or scarlet fever; and, 2. That there is little or no danger to the other inmates of the house, if its sanitary arrangements are perfect and the stools properly managed.

On this view of the nature and mode of action of contagion, it is easy to see, not only how the process of contagion and its varying phenomena may be explained, but how, by care, much may be done both to prevent the poison from passing into the atmosphere and to diminish its chance of acting after it has got there. We have only to consider what is the chief channel by which the contagion gets exit from the system, to know by what means we are most likely to prevent its passing into the surrounding atmosphere. In typhoid fever the poison passes off in the stools; and what we have to do is to see that these are promptly and properly disinfected and disposed of. In small-pox, scarlet fever, typhus fever, and measles, it is eliminated by the skin, and we can not altogether prevent its getting into the atmosphere; but, by frequent sponging with some disinfecting fluid, or even with plain water, many germs may be arrested in their outward course.

The apostolic mode of anointing with oil is also an efficacious way of fixing and arresting the germs: it is specially useful during