Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-10

| as public safeguards and depended upon -
| experts Of very signal service TO the world.
| Before the Medical Library Association
| Of New York in 1871 DR.. j. c. Mott laid
| down as conclusions to which 40 years OF
experience led him that epidemic diseases
produce a peculiar constitution of atmos.
,phere which influences all current diseases"
Atmospheric Causes of Disease.
In this he followed the illustrious Sydsn.
ham, who thought and wrote deeply on the
| influence of atmospheric causes Of disease,
and who declared that "there are various
constitutions of the year which come neither
from heat, cold. drought nor humidity, bat
rather from a concealed and inexpicabls
alteration which occurs in the bowels of the
earth. Then the air is affected with per.
nicious exhalations which cause special dis
eases as long as the same constitution 10 pre-.
dominant"
DIR. Mott, after long practice in the South,
wrote that "yellow fever creates peculiar
atmospheric constitution which never dies
out and manifests itself in the types Of re-
mittent levers even in the absence Of yellow
fever" and further says that mo disease 10
more Influenced by atmospheric constitu-
tions than epidemic pneumonia. Our best
directed efforts" he says, may never reach
any satisfactory explanation OF so-called at.
mospheric constitutions, but it not unreason-
able to hope fhe microscope may some day
discover living germs as causes of certain
zymotic diseases" which it has since done
These germs, DR.. Mott thinks, may hybri-
die like other forms of animal life, so that
the virus of yellow fever, transported By at.
mospheric currents, may add malignancY to
the usual run of winter and spring diseases
"a theory which 30 fits all symptoms Of
present epidemics that it deserves most
searching study.
One Kind of Needed Coast DefenseG.
It is hardly 20 years since the outbreak
of yellow fever among the troops at Cover.
nors Island, N. Y, and how many times
since it has knocked at the gates only the
health officers know, and are careful not to
tell. We are warned of the defenseless con-
dition of our harbors in case of wal, but they
is ten times more exposed to the assaults Of
malignant epidemics, hardly more from
foreign vagrants than from their own unsani.
tary condition. Sydenham has caught the
idea Of the origin of zymotic disease az one
cropping catches an animal in the dark.
The death dealing constitution or condi-
tion of the atmosphere of which he wrots
comes, indeed, from tine concealed but mot
inexplicable alteration in the soil saturated
filtration by gaseous. liquid and solid decay,
at certain temperatures and rate of humidity,
the soil will develop a concentrated miasms
which stealthily saps the strength till some
OVERRIDING, some sudden change of cold and
heat tilts the balance. Then come the
symptoms we know so well-the chill, the
ache OF limbs which doctors name the bone
breaking teaver, then diarrhea and the
prostration which seems utterly out Of pro-
portion to the short Iun of sickness which
preceded it. But not to the long, gradual
sign that the point of resistance had been
passed.
Fortifying Against the Germs
What does it matter if you catch the very
bacillus of la grippe? Isolate him. put him in
cabinets on microscopic slides, raise colonies
of him in gelatine Tor the delight Of every
schoolboy-nay, have competitive exhibi-
tions of the finest specimens raised under
glass. Microscopists tell US disease does not
depend on the germ, but on the weakness Of
the system which receives it We every one
OF us dispose Of q thousand germs daily, any
one of which is enough to destroy Us If our
systems were not able to kill them of, AZ the
gastric juice kills mites eaten on Lettuce
generally.
If we breathe and eat and drink impurity
365 days in year, how long are health and
vitality to resist? How long will it be it'll
the white blood offers the very Couture"
needed for the dreaded germs to develop,
turning it to depravity and decay?
So much for the origin of la grippe.
The idea nearest home has the most Ike
Iihood of truth-namely, that 1t il bred
from concentrated virus rising from poisoned
soil, which may gain malignity from fev3r
and cholera germs transported by atmos-
Nh il-a wi fph0 Va
dust Of Krakatos across the globe. 1t be-
comes us more to study means Of resistance,
to put our frames in the
Best Possible Condition of Defense
bv all natural tonics of clean living In
every sense, of due rest, checking the rush
of overwork in money-making or social
ambition, eating food which least taxes
digestion and keeps all the outlets of the
body open, admitting the sun to our houses
and living directly in the earliest and
latest lifegiying beams.
Happily, science puts In reach q new or.
der OF air purifiers, no longer confning us
to chloride of lime, carbolic acid, sulphur
and various commercial stenches. The
germicides of the year are grateful, fra
grant, filling houses with odors of field and
Forest aroma of pine and fir, eucalyptus and
thyme, delightful for bath and toilet, invig-
Grating, calming and safe in all ways.
They are even stainless to linen, purging ID
of all smells of sickness or i'll health. We
can have offices, halls and homes pure with
the breath of mountain meadows by spray
ing them daily and plentifully with these
new sanitary agents. They will never equal
the purityof clean air. but they are boon
to those who must stay in towns as unclesn
as New York, OF which lady coming from
Washington said, "I was ashamed to zee
how dirty our town is b"
But New York is not the only dirty city
which makes the matter worse.