Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/792

768 the other hand, is very prone to recur, and in not a few cases the original attack merges into a chronic state of suffering, which may continue for months or even years.

I have taken scarlet fever as a representative of the class of infectious diseases, the cause of which is the contamination of the system by some specific poison, and I have sketched in a few words the main symptoms which result. For our present purposes the important points are the contagious or infectious character of the disease, and the proofs that the contagious material multiplies within the system which it has invaded, and from which it sallies forth in quest of other victims. There are, unfortunately, not a few diseases belonging to the same category as scarlet fever, the principal being small-pox, measles, typhus, influenza, whooping-cough, diphtheria, typhoid, and cholera. With regard to all these it may be stated that they are all separate and distinct as regards causation. A case of scarlet fever never gives rise to small-pox in those exposed to infection, neither does any one of the above diseases ever pass into another. There are other subordinate distinctions: the poison of scarlet fever, contained presumably in detached particles of skin, clings for months to articles of clothing, especially woolen ones; that of small-pox may be collected from the eruption and preserved for years between pieces of glass; that of typhus is easily rendered innocuous by free ventilation. All these peculiarities—and many more might be cited—point to important differences in the nature of the infectious materials.

What this infectious material really is has often been keenly debated since medicine became a science, and at the present time is the question which most closely occupies the minds of medical investigators. Merely to enumerate the inquiries, and to describe the experiments and the theories based thereon, would fill a volume; but it is not to be wondered at that this subject should have excited so much attention when we reflect upon the prevalence and fatality of the diseases in question, and upon the comparatively slight influence which treatment exercises upon their course. On the other hand, experience clearly shows that their prevention is not only possible, but in some cases easily accomplished. The knowledge of the causes of these diseases would indicate the proper preventive measures, or at any rate the direction which such measures should take, and hence a discovery of the cause in any given case at once yields practical results. When we know what causes infection, we can apply disinfection with every prospect of success. Without such knowledge success, if attained, must be accidental rather than otherwise. The nature of the contagious agencies, and the medium through which they spread, are the most important points in connection with the subject of infection.

There is strong evidence in support of the view that these contagia are actual living things. Formerly the opinion was universally held that infectious diseases were caused by foul air, and the effluvia