The Influence of heredity and contagion on the propagation of tuberculosis : and the prevention of injurious effects from consumption of the flesh and milk of tuberculous animals / by A. Lydtin, G. Fleming, and Van Hertsen.

  • Lydtin, A.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Influence of heredity and contagion on the propagation of tuberculosis : and the prevention of injurious effects from consumption of the flesh and milk of tuberculous animals / by A. Lydtin, G. Fleming, and Van Hertsen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    99/188
    he gives three instances which clearly show that sleeping with phthisical people may transmit the malady.* In consequence of this occurrence, he declared that it was dangerous to have close re- lations with phthisical persons, and he announced the fact publicly. Other examples of transmission of the malady from man to man are given by Pothius, Schmidt, and Kruger,t and in Hufeland's Journal.\ This is what we read on the subject: “The contagious power of Pulmonary Phthisis, which has been several times observed, has been lately confirmed in a very evident manner. A young farmer, in perfect health, received a present of shirts and clothes which had been worn by a person who died of Phthisis. He wore these articles, and in six months was dead from Phthisis.” The writer adds : “ How often may the unknown cause have been perhaps in the clothes or the beds used by phthisical people, and how difficult it is to discover the danger to which we are exposed in sleeping in a bed previously occu- pied by we know not whom (hotel or lodging-house bed) ? Should it not be the duty of those who are entrusted with the sanitary service to see to the destruction of all the clothes, shirts, and beds which have been used by phthisical people in their last moments, as is prescribed by the Italian legislature ? In all these cases, at least, these beds should only be used again after the flock {duvet) has been washed and exposed to the air for a year.” Fritzen§ gives some instances of contagion. He says ; “ The very judicious observation of a great number of physicians, that Pulmonary Phthisis is contagious, has been confirmed in my long experience. A domestic inherited from his master, who died of Phthisis, several suits of clothes, among which was a vest which he wore some time afterwards, without taking the pre- caution of washing it. Four weeks later the early symptoms of Phthisis manifested themselves, and he died in six months. A young woman in very good health, one of a family without any history of Phthisis, was married to a phthisical man, in whose family there had been several deaths from Tuberculosis. Some Esprit des Joumaux,” Paris, 1779. t “ Ephemerides Naturae Curiosorum, decuria,” I., II., III. I *•’ PP- 34> 35- § Medic. Annalen,” Vol. I., p. 231.