The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-01-06

Dr. Brehmer quotes the botanist Wigand's
| idea that bacteria originates spontaneously
| in organic substances independently of pre-
existing germs from without; describes a
case of consumption produced by trauma,
or sudden blow on the thorax, where no
exterior wound was present to serve as an
entrance to infection.
A hundred years before the discovery by
| Koch of the bacillus tuberculosis, the
municipal government of Naples issued an
| edict for the isolation of consumptives.
Physicians, in the first article of this edlct,
were ordered to announce every case OF
| pulmonary consumption at the police
bureau, or suffer, paying fine of 500 ducatS
for the first offense, and being banished for
| the second for ten years. Poor patients
were to be brought into the hospitals where,
according to the third article, all garments
and linens used by consumptives should be
| separately stored and washed Article
| directs the return of disinfected furniture,
and the burning of all suspected clothes;
Art. o, the magistracy to cause the ROOMS of
| diseased persons to be cleaned at its expense,
the walls and ceilings to be refreshed and
| wooden doors and window frames to be
| burned. The measures, in short, taken
| against consumption were as severe as those
against the pest. They were kept in force
with vigor during fifty-six years, making
| the event an episode in the history of medi-
| cine. If the theory raised by Dr. Koch Of
| the infectious nature of consumption be a
| fact, the results of this experiment would
! have shown in favor of it. The isolation Of
patientswas kept up for nearly two genera
tions, yet at the end of that time phthisis
was not less prevalent On the contrary,
| isolation of cousumptives in Naples pro-
| duced no perceptible decrease of pulmonary
| disease, but worked indescribable HARM"
as a contemporary, DIR. Rienzi, asserts.
DIR. Brehmer's own observations, which
| have been made on thousands of
patients while they lead him to
bacillus tuberculosis as the cause of
the persistence of phthisis, influence him to
considerably limit his belief in their impor-
| lance as the primary agent in originating
consumption. He Fl DIS this instead, in the
| disposition or peculiar constitutional ten
dency, called in medical phraSeology, the
| phthisical habit.
There is certain structure of the body,
| diverging from the normal, which every
| physician can recognize as one that Will
in all probability be attacked by
consumption. and which DR.. Brehmer ex-
| plains as the advanced results of degenera-
| tive processes. The characteristics of it
| are long neck, fiat and shallow chest, and
| wide between the ribs. With these out
ward deviations are associated striking in
ternal oues-namely, a SMALL weak heart
| and small blood vessels, and bulky but
| f1abby lungs.
DR.. Brehmer's record of patients has
been kept in part with the idea of discover
| ing how this condition is evolved.
The genealogical examination of 1900
| patients showed that the last offsprings of
a numerous family, the parents of which
are healthy aud sound, are overtaken with
phthisis, whereas the first children born
remain exempt The probability Of sicken-
ing begins at the sixth child. 1t is, how
| ever, not absolutely necessary that it should
| be exactly the sixth. it can DO the fifth or
the seventh, or eighth. The disease is
furthered If the offspring DO born one year
| after the foregoing child.
Consumption, secondly, occurs not only
in the last children Of a numerous family,
but also in families of few children, where
one parent or both belonged to the last of
large number of offspring The disease
might have been looked for in the parents
but not coming to light in them. breaks out
in the second generation. Heredity here is
not to be understood as a developed disease,
but as a mOrphological series Of changes
from the normal structure of the body
which is disposed to disease. OF no other
infectious disease can it be foretold in adj
vance that person of a certain build will
be attacked by it. But this can be done of
consumption. Where the constitutional
peculiaritle5 do not exist, and phthi is
appears, it is the result of influences that
retarded too much the processes OF nutritious
excess in venery, dIsorderly life, giving birth
to many children in close succession.
Consumption is essentially but the express
sion of retarded, inefficient nourishment.
1t rarely if ever attacks persons suffering
from enlarged heart or from diseases or
malformations of tho blood vessels, which
tend to increase the size and force of the
heart and, consequently, to more rapid
circulation of the blood and accelerated
rNr-tf 10 .Igr Il Nl..,No
abdominal tumors are IN like manner in
compatible with consumption, the enlarged
gland which constitutes goitre pressing on
the windpipe and reducing the calber of
the tube, compelling the patient to take
deeper inspirations of air. In like manner
the abdominal tumors, by pressing the
midriff upward, squeeze the lungs into a
smaller space, thus necesstatiug increased
rapidity of respiration and circulation
Virchow in his account Of the typhus ia
Upper Silesia in lS47 mentions the very
swollen bellies Of children" produced by the
immense number of potaJoei consumed. and
calls attention to the rarity of consumption
among the inhabitants. By virtue of the
large quantities Of food eaten, the abdomen
compressed the lungs into comparatively
small space and made them less liable to
suffer from inadequate nutrition. The old
standing belief that intermittent fever or
ague conferredimmunlty from consumption
is TO be explained by the pressure caused by
the enlargement Of the spleen. which Is
the concomitant Of malarial affections. In
the neighboring counties, Obwdlden and
Oberhasle, in Switzerland, that lie at the
same hight and present the anne natural
aspects, 3.6 per thousand Inhabitants die of
consumption i'll Oberhasle yearly, and in
Obwalden only Lea difference that is only
to be accounted for in the greater abun-
dance of food in the latter district.
ris will tba al or1I u
furnishes similar results. Chamois, whose
food Is sparse and precaripus, have persisted,
and, in spite of the high regions they in
habit, have shown cavities in the lungs
upon dissection as the cause Of death.
Breeders of race horses and cattle lay stress
upon abundance of food for the young
animal as the factor that decides its normal
development 1t is only after the ribs have
become vaulted by abundance Of food that
the belly, acting as a wedge, can broaden
the chest. This breadth remains, being
bony structure. while the hanging belly in
time disappears.
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