Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/473

Rh exterminated the plague rapidly disappeared; whereas at other places where too little attention had been paid to the rat plague the pestilence continued. This connection between the human plague and the rat plague was totally unknown before, so that no blame attaches to those who devised the measures now in force against the plague if the said measures have proved unavailing. It is high time, however, that this enlarged knowledge of the etiology of the plague should be utilized in international as well as in other traffic. As the human plague is so dependent on the rat plague it is intelligible that protective inoculation and the application of antitoxic serum have had so little effect. A certain number of human beings may have been saved from the disease by that, but the general spread of the pestilence has not been hindered in the least.

With cholera the case is essentially different; it may under certain circumstances be transmitted directly from human beings to other human beings, but its main and most dangerous propagator is water, and therefore in the combating of cholera water is the first thing to be considered. In Germany, where this principle has been acted on, we have succeeded for four years in regularly exterminating the pestilence (which was introduced again and again from the infected neighboring countries) without any obstruction of traffic.

Hydrophobia, too, is not void of instruction for us. Against this disease the so-called protective inoculation proper has proved eminently effective as a means of preventing the outbreak of the disease in persons already infected, but of course such a measure can do nothing to prevent infection itself. The only real way of combating this pestilence is by compulsory muzzling. In this matter also we have had the most satisfactory experience in Germany, but have at the same time seen that the total extermination of the pestilence can be achieved only by international measures, because hydrophobia, which can be very easily and rapidly suppressed, is always introduced again year after year from the neighboring countries.

Permit me to mention only one other disease, because it is etiologically very closely akin to tuberculosis, and we can learn not a little for the furtherance of our aims from its successful combating. I mean leprosy. It is caused by a parasite which greatly resembles the tubercle bacillus. Just like tuberculosis, it does not break out till long after infection and its course is almost slower. It is transmitted only from person to person, but only when they come into close contact, as in small dwellings and bedrooms. In this disease, accordingly, immediate transmission plays the main part; transmission by animals, water, or the like is out of the question. The combative measures, accordingly, must be directed against this close intercourse between the sick and the healthy. The only way to prevent this intercourse is to isolate the