Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1879-08-29
Contagious and Infectious Diseases.

The intimate relation that exists be-
tween apparently trifling causes and
most important results, says New
York paper, has received no better il
lustration for years than may be in
stanced in the present vague dread of
yellow fever, growing out of confusion
of terms. 1t is not asserted by physi-
clans of standing, acquainted with its
methods, that yellow fever is contagious,
while it is everywhere maintained by
experts that it is an infectious disease
specific fever, caused by the genera
tion at favorable centers of a specific in
fiction. The nature of that infection is
question in dispute, but it's existence,
its portability in damp timber or cloth
ing, and its power of reproducing the
disease at points very distant from the
original center of generation are settled
points. On the other hand, the danger
of attending upon yellow fever patient,
OF of being in the same house or room
with one, is no greater than that of
being in the same house with typhoid,
provided the house is situated upon high
ground, is not within q center of infec-
ton, and is kept dry and salubrious.
This is in accordance with the evidence
vi III. N'Ollull, Ill llo IClIlttI hftDlC HOuC III
Watson's Institutes" of DR.. Blair,
whose experience with the fever ran
through a series of epidemics, and of
every medical man who has made a
careful study of the disease in its pri-
mary foci of development. To contrast
yellow fever with smallpox is to form
the clean est conception possible to the
popular mind of the difference between
infection and contagion. In the latter
the body of the patient in the progress
of the attack generates the specific poi
son by which the disease is propagated.
Unless one has had the disease, or has
been protected by vaccination, to attend
upon q smallpox patient is to contract
the disease. In yellow fever, on the
contrary, there is no evidence whatever
that the body of the patient gen.
crates any poisonous matter capable oil
producing the disease. Whatever may
be the source of the noaterieS naorbi, it is
not communicated by contact, although
it may be transported for thousands oil
miles in damp clothing, timber saturated
with moisture, OF moist vegetable met
ter in the hold of vessel Moisture and
high temperature are, indeed, essential
to its activity; whereas in smallpox, Il
true contagious disease, they are unim-
portant factors in the diffusion of the
poison. A contagion, then, is properly
something generated by the progress oil
disease in the body of the patient, which
when taken into the lung or absorbed by
the skin or mucous membranes of q
healthy person, is capable, after vary
ing period of incubation, of reproducing
the specific disease from which il
sprang. An infection is something gen.
Grated by decaying animal or vegetable
matter, by conditions of moisture OF
temperature, by the soil of locality, OF
by all these combined, which is capable
of producing specific disease, but is in
capable of reproducing itself as the
cause of the disease within the body o
the patient. These two sentences, with
out going into germ or other theories o
propagation. define the practical differ
ence between smallpox and yellow
fever, and show how groundless are th,
panics created by sporadic cases of thu
latter