Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-10
THE GRIP MICROBE.
Bred at First From Poisoned Soil
1t Gains Malignity From
GERMS OF FEVER AND, CHOLERA.
Prevention in Fortifying the System and
In Disinfectants.
GERMIcIDES THAT ARE AGREEABLE
WRITTEN ron THE prsrArcH.1

WRITTEN ToB THE DIsPArCH.1
Metropolitan papers BY direct inspiration
suggest the propriety of commission to in
quire into the causes of the present and pre-
vailing epidemic. While the doctors are
beginning to think about taking steps to
open their inquiry, there is nothing in the
world to hinder any person from consti-
tuting himself committee ofone to investi-
gate the reasons for the grip. 1t is much to
be feared he will not go far before the ques-
tion takes the shape, 'Is there any reason
why there shouldn't be grip?" It looks as
If it had come to stay, permanent and perni-
cieus, and it will be harder to dislodge the
plague than any one imagines.
Of course the average citizen will not see
any use in getting uneasy on the subject
any more than he did about the war the
day before the guns were pounding Fort
Sumter, or than he will about the coast
defenses till the day some third-rate power,
which puts all its money in steel cruisers,
Blockades New York harbor and stuns busi-
ness for season before we can pull our
selves together to realize the case. He hates
smelling committees as disturbers OF the
leave their health to the doctors-his phrase
Is, to "trust themselves implicitly in the
hands of the physician and suffer him to
lead them by the hand" It is best not to
invite the average citizen to take part in
our health commission.
What the Doctors Say Of It
Come to think, the doctors need not all be
left behind. I am not at all sure that many
of them-serious, thinking, hard working
physicians, too closely run with the de-
mands Of large practice to write for the
papers-have not a shrewd theory as to the
origin of la grippe and its kindred disorders.
Some of them protest it is no new disease,
but a concentrated and virulent form OF
various respectable ailments, caused by pol
luted air and fermenting food.
They say that it reminds them Of the out
break of meningitis ten years ago, that it
has much in common with the depressing
effects of typhoid, modified by the cleaner
they used to, preparatory to putting on clean
shirts and collars, and find their account
in it.
They have only to reckon with bad air,
want of sunlight and injudicious food. You
can call it malaria or not, as you please,
there's no denying that the air in New York
and several other cities we might name is
well, not exactly bad. but not as good as 1t
might be. We are all agreed on the safe
ground that grip is caused by q microbe.
Lulled by the Microbe Theory.
The average citizen gets deal of comfort
out of the idea, and is content to leave things
there. You can't catch q mlcrobe and put
him in bottle, or kill him with fy poison,
So what's the use of bothering about him.
Only that microbes spring from bad air,
flourish in it, increase by billions in it, and
if you get rid of bad air, the microbe goes
with it. What makes bad air? Dirt has
something to do with 1t, animal and vege-
table waste have much to do in making it,
the crowding OF human beings in i'll venti-
lated, sunless houses, or close vehicles
makes it.
Do not let your Imagination wander to the
slums at once. I do not speak Of the
crowded tenement streets, but of eligible
quarters of the city where high rents are the
rule. 1t will be enough for most persons to
60 through certain well-known blocks to as
certain reason for bad air, microbes and the
grip. Take one block scented with half Q
dozen stables, the foul dust lying in wind
row by each curbstone, irritating nostrils,
eyes and throat as the air raises it, and you
will wonder that any one can live there.
These sickly days of April past the odors
OF musty stable dust have pervaded the
cross streets and penetrated to bed cham
bers. What carriage owner OF the whole
city would build his country house cheek BY
jowI with his stable, or what yillager would
not be outraged il his neighbor kept horses
the other side Of his parlor wall, even with
acres of free wind blowing about them?
Tho Test Of Delicate Senses.
Yet, in close streets, weIl-to-do families
live contentedly beside stable, and restau-
49, h,,x