Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1896-05-01
4 MOST FATAL DISEASE.
A Doctors Book ON Consumptlon Gives
Some Startling Figures.

! Some Startling Figures.
A book by DIR. William Murrell,
celebrated English specialist, entitled
''Clinical Lectures on the Prevention of
Consumption" has just been published
in London and is attracting much at
! tentiOn there on account of it's being an
eminently practica. work, and because
the preventive measures which he pro-
poses have been thoroughly considered
and are readily applicable by every one.
In this country, according to the lat
est statistics, more people die from con-
sumption than any other disease. In
the census year of 1SS9-9O there were
over 900 deaths from this disease.
In England and Wales, DR.. Murrell says,
from $4,000 to 10000 people die annual
ly from consumption, and another So
900 from other tuberculous diseases.
In the 80 years from 1S4S to 1880, the
number of deaths registered as due to
phthisis, or consumption of the lungs,
was 1 ,7O2, O27, the majority of patients
being comparatively young adults.
DR.. Murrell states that perhaps the
first greatneed is that the public should
realize that consumption is an infec-
tious disease. The infectious nature of
the malady is recognized By all doctors,
but even the educated public are on
the whole lamentably ignorant OIL the
subject.
If it were once realized that all forms
of tuberculous disease are due to the
presence of a germ. the tuberclc bacii-
l,ls, and that the germ or it's spores may
pass from the tuberculous patient to
the healthy and there set up similar
mischief; and that it is possible to pre-
vent the passage of the living germ
from the diseased to the healthy, a
great advance would have been made
on the attempt to prevent the spread of
the disease. Speaking of the dangers
of infection DR.. Murrell says on the
authority of DR.. Hermann Weber:
''Thc following is the history of GS
persons, male or female, who, with a
more or less pronounced consumptive
faint, married healthy partners. The
wives of 80 became infected and the
husbands in more than one instance in
fected more than one wife. Thus, nine
husbands lost between them is wives
i'll this way, one having lost four wives,
one losing three, four others two each,
and three only one each. The hus-
bands who married consulnptive wives
suffered less, for of the husbands of
20 wives only one WAS infected.
''Bergeret also records d remarkable
instance of the communicating of con-
sumption. He relates the case of 4 SOL
der. healthy and without hereditary
faint, who. suffering from trivial all
ment, was sent to Il hospital. By
chance he was placed in u ward between
two consumptive patients. He speed
lily developed symptoms of the disease,
and was sent home to his native place.
Shortly after his mother, two brothers
and Il neighbor and his wife became
consumptive."
AS to the methods recommended for
preventing the disease, they may be
gathered from a perusal of the condi-
tions which are favorable to it's spread,
and from the observance of 4 few SIM
pie rules. Overcrowding, deficient
ventilation, bad drainage, damp eli
mate, dusty occupations and INSULT
cient sunlight all help to induce con-
ditiOn of ill-health which renders the
subjects of it easy victims to the in
| lection.
This has been stri]1ingly illustrated
in England many times with soldiers
in barracks and with the inmates of
prisons. tuberculosis also occurs in
epidemic form among animals kept in
confinement. One mode of spreading
the disease, which is often the cause of
the infection of children, is the practice
of kissing on the mouth. ''This repre-
hensible procedure should be most car
nestly discouraged" says DR.. Nlurrell.
| Other means of prevention which the
author says he cannot too strongly
recommend are the thorough disinfec-
ton of the rooms and clothing of con-
sumptive patients, the isolation of pa
tients in an advanced stage of the dis
ease, the inspection of cattle, the pre-
vcntion OF overcrowding, the condem-
nation of all back-to-back houses, the
rejection as an article of food, of the
milk from tuberculous COWS, and the
regulation Of dusty occupations so us
to minimize the dangers arising from
them.-Chicago Tribune.
Stick Carried Word Across Atlantic.
In the records of the photographic
office is preserved a very remarkable
story, illustrating the eccentricity of
the ocean currents which the bottle pa
pers are designed to trace. On the I'd
day of September, 1892, the young
daughter of the blacksmith of Gamma,
an island of the Hebrides group, was
| wandering along the seashore for the
purpose of gathering tlriftwood for fuel.