The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-07-19
PREVENTION OF DISEASE.
The Advance Made in the Last DecaGs II
i'm

| The Advance Made IN the Last DecaCS In
This Direction.
Recent studies have shown, as most
educated people well know to-day, that
this whole class of formidable diseases
is caused by minute organisms which
enter the body from without, and, each
after its kind, poison or kill. It is a
long and sinister list, with consumption
or tuberculosis at the head. In it's
train follow pneumonia, diphtheria,
scarlet fever, typhoid fever, cholera,
srnall-pox, measles, typhus fever, yellow
| fever, malaria, and more of the devilish
| brood.
Twelve years ago we knew practic-
! ally nothing of these invisible enemies,
| the pathogenic germs, which neverthe-
| less carried off prematurely and under
untold suffering a large part Of the hui
man race. To-day some of them are
present at the roll-call in every we'll
furnished bacterial labora tory: their
pedigrees, their lurking places, and
their habits are as distinctly matters Of
record as are those of larger criminals
in statelier prison houses. To-day we
know something Of the stories Of nearly
all of them, and of many how they
produce their dire effects in the body;
we know the conditions under which
they thrive: know how, outside of the
body at least, they can be killed. Now
and again it has seemed as if the veil
were parting, and we could catch
glimpses of time not far off when we
shall be able to battle with these in
truders, even in the body when their
ravageS are already under way.
But as yet the great practical result
of this decade of discovery lies not SO
much in the power which we
have acquired to cure, as in the
power to prevent bacterial disease. We
have learned that in large number of
bacteria diseases the melting germs
have no breeding-places outside the
bodies of those men or animals which
are their victims, and that if all ma
terials thrown off from these be at
once destroyed by heat, by fire, by
chemicals, or in any other way, all
danger of transmission is removed.
In regard to such diseases, then, as
typhoid fever, cholera, diphtheria land
in large measure the same is true of
consumption and pneumonia, our point
of view has entirely changed. They
are not inevitable accidents, even I'M
der the complex and in many ways I'M
favorable conditions of life in crowded
communities. When to-day we hear
that this or that useful citizen has
fallen by the way, stricken with ty-
phoid fever, or when diphtheria claims
the light of the household, we know
that ignorance or carelessness, be it
private or official, is alone to blame.
We cannot always, we cannot often,
trace the fault, so complex are the con-
ditions of modern life. 1T may be the
milll-dispenser, it may be an inefficient
water supply, or the filthy folly of trail
ing skirts along the streets, which has
brought the germs to the victim. They
are sown by indiscretion, and fostered
always by ignorance and neglect
Diphtheria claims yearly in this land
its hundreds Of thousands Of child vic
tins, uselessly sacrificed on the altar of
public apathy or private Incidence. A
conservative comparison and estimate
shows that in the state Of Michigan
alone, during the three years 16S6-sS,
at least 10, 600 cases of diphtheria were
probably prevented. and more than l.
200 lives saved, by intelligent isolation
and disinfection. DR.. L. Mitchell Prud-
den, in the Century.