Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/355

Rh especially close relations with the sick. It will thus he seen that in the one case the evidence is nearly always clear, cumulative, and convincing, in the other it is usually confusing and sometimes contradictory. In former times, when controversies on the subject were frequent in the medical profession, equally good observers often came to diametrically opposite conclusions. It must not be supposed, however, that knowledge of the bacillus as a causative agent is the only ground for belief in the contagiousness of consumption. If this were the case, the matter could hardly be regarded as settled, for malarial fevers are known to be produced by a micro-organism, but are not contagious. There has seldom or never been a time when a conviction that consumption was contagious did not prevail to some extent, and few physicians of much experience have failed to see one or more cases which could only be satisfactorily accounted for on this ground. It has even occasionally happened that in certain localities this theory of its nature has gained such widespread credence as to lead to definite action. This was the case in Italy during the period from 1787 to 1848, when vigorous measures were taken to stamp out the disease, and a special hospital for consumptives was established at Olivuzza. At Naples the bedding of consumptives was burned, and their vacated apartments were completely renovated before being used again. In fact, the unfortunate sufferers were often shunned, and whole families were driven to want. It is said, however, that this method of dealing with the disease made no impression on the death-rate, and it was therefore abandoned.

Some of the recorded instances of the communicability of tuberculosis are, especially with our added knowledge of the bacillus, quite striking. Among these may be mentioned the inoculation experiments of Villemin, already referred to. Before this, however, Laennec, who became eventually a victim to the disease, believed that he had inoculated his own finger by means of a saw while he was making a post-morem [sic] examination of the dead body of a consumptive. A tuberculous nodule developed at the seat of the wound. Morgagni, too, at a still earlier period, showed by his writings that he realized the danger of inoculation in this way. Calves which have sucked cows suffering from pearl disease or tuberculosis are frequently found to be affected with the same disease. Dr. Jacobi has recorded an instance of a dog contracting tuberculosis by licking the sputa of his diseased master as he followed him about the garden. Acute or hasty consumption has prevailed in almost epidemic form among young recruits in crowded barracks in England, and the inmates of certain convents have been almost exterminated by the same disease. In a convent in Louisville nine of the nuns developed consumption