The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1881-10-13
Is Consumption Contagious

If our medical journals were to an
nounce the steady approach to this
country-say from China-of an i1l-uu-
derstood, painful and usually fatal mall
ady, which if once established among
us would certainly kill half a million Of
our citizens every year and ultimately
carry off n in every five OF the entire
population, it is safe to presume that
the announcement would not be calmly
received. As one man, physicians not
less strenuously than laymen, we should
demand the most rigorous quarantine
against the infected country. No effort
would be accounted too heroic, no pre-
caution too costly, to shield our country
from SO disastrous an invasion. And If
there were any doubt as to the specific
nature of the threatenedplague or of the
mode of its transmission or inception,
neither our medical and sanitary socie-
ties nor the Government would rest un-
til competent commissions were sent to
investigate the matter. 1t would be &C
counted criminal Indifference on the
part of medical and sanitary authorities
to neglect to make q concerted and per-
sistent effort to discover the causes and
conditions of the plague, and how to
protect the community from its ravages
OI W CuI0 It's tlCblllb Wucu dbtdCA6us
Would the urgency of the case be
diminished in any respect by the cir
cumstance that the supposed invasion
had already become a fact accom-
plished?
At first thought, any n would re-
ply : Not In the least rather on the
contrary ; for the evil in the latter case
would be actual, not threatened merely,
and the loss or saving Of half a million
lives a year is a matter of the gravest
national importance. Yet it is a singular
fact that, while weshould be thrown into
a panic if half o million lives were
threatened with q new disease, we ac-
cept as inevitable, almost with indiffer-
ence, the certain killingof thatnumberof
people every year by an old and familiar
malady. And our medical authorities
tell us, without a twinge of professional
pride, that they really do not know pos
itively how consumption is induced and
transmitted, or whether it is communi-
cable from the sick to the well or not ;
and, worse yet, they confess without
blushing that they do not contemplate
any special or general effort to have
such momentous questions critically in
vestigatedl
When half a million Of DISCONTINUED
natives of Europe throng to our shores
in q single year we do not fail to appre-
ciate the importance of the gain, both
immediate and prospective. When q
larger number of our own citizens are
cut off untimely by a disease which,
while it destroys them, transmits q leg
acy of sickness and too often early death
to their descendants, we mourn our in
| dividual losses, but make no adequate
effort to put an end to the national loss
by urging or aiding the scientific deter
mination Of its conditions, causes and
remedies. Already one in every five of
| our population dies of consumption, and
the indications are that the conditions of
our civilization tend toincrease the death
rate from this cause. If the disease is
infectious, as many believe, the multi
plication of cases may sooner or later
reach a point-if its progress is un-
checked-at which a perpetuation Of our
race and the civilization developed by it
will become impossible. Other races
and civilizations have disappeared, leav-
ing no explanation of the secret of their
decline. Others, We have good reasons
for believing, have been exterminated
by plaques peculiar to them, developed,
in all probability, by something peculiar
to their modes Of living.
That there is any imminent danger OF
so disastrous a result to our race and civ
ilization from the increase of consump-
ton, no one but IN alarmist would sup
pose; still it remains an impending pos
sibiity, more especially if there is any
error in the common belief that the dis
ease is not contagious or Infectious
Scientific american.