Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1871-06-29
Causes of Summer Diseases.

can.
Causes of Summer Diseases.
The Journal Of Health, for June, under
different heading, states the following
ing facts concerning the causes of di-
sease:
The mistletoe bough, like the Spanish
moss, which drapes the trees of South
ern swamps in such sad funereal garb, is
a growth outside of the natural condi-
ton of the tree, it is parasite, a fungus :;
very low form of life, exceedingly
slow in development in some cases, in
others so inconceivably rapid as to be
reproduced in millions in a few hours, as
in the toadstool and mushroom. The
common yeast, with which we make our
bread, is a mass of living things, dozen
of them generating myraids more in a
night, these fungi, sporules, or germs,
are not only the pests of living plants,
eating out the entire life in the course OF
time, but they infest animals and man,
carrying with them, sometimes, the most
dreadful deaths. The mushroom, the
morel, and the trutfie, among the great
est delicacies of the table with some, are
fungi. In some cases they kill, or cause
disease, or poison. Ergot, klight, mill
dew, rust, brand, dry rot, are all the d1-
seased results of fungous growth.
There are similar growths or products
in the animal world, called "cell" life.
Vegetables come from seed, animals from
| eggs by cell development, and these cells
or eggs are as amazing in their fecundity
as fungous growth. A man swallows a
| few mouthfuls of raw pork in which are
| a few trichine. In avery few days, living
things are found burrowing in the flesh
| by millions, causing the most agonizing
pains and dreadful death,
Between the effects of fungi and cell
products, the vegetable germ and the an
| imal egg, men perish in millions every
year. Asiatic cholera seems to be, by
the latest researches, the product of d
thing of life, but whether vegetable or
animal admits of question thus far.
! Whooping cough is apparently of veg
etable growth; for when the eXpectora-
ton OF child suffering from it is exam
ined, it is crowded with germs; on one
occasion a small amount of it was intro
duced into the windpipe of a healthy
young rabbit; in a few days it had a
| troublesome cough, and on examination
were found all along the throat, wind
pipe, and lungs.
Plague and pestilence, and all those
diseases, called epidemic, which suddenly
fall upon whole community, such as
fever and ague, chill and fever, bilious
fever, yellow fever, diarrhoea, and dys-
entary, are caused by marsh miasm.
+ In the worst time of yellow fever and
cholera in New Orleans, the evening and
the morning air was SO cool and deli
cious and balmy that many q time we
have breathed it by the hour in perfect
delight; and yet the resident knew thai
| it was but the sure intimation that the
| disease would be more fearful in a day OF
two. But if this air be bottled and ta-
ken thousand miles away, put into a
close room where a healthy man is sleep
ing, he will have the ordinary symptoms
of chill and fever in a day or two, and
myriads Of these pestiferous things will
be fonnl about his tongue, his throat
and windpipe, and his lungs and stom-
ach.
The newspapers announced recently
| that the Asiatic cholera had made its APP
pearance in India; its progress has been
always westward along the most promi-
nent lines of travel, until it reaches
| America, crosses to the coast of Cali
fornia, and is lost in the boundless Pa
| cific