Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-12-14
DISEASE IN TRAINS.
Some of the Risks Run in Travelling
 Are Invisible Microbes.

When one enters railway car- riage to go on long journey one frequently offers up sort of prayer that the dangers of twentieth cen- tury railways be escaped. If asked to describe this barely formed idea of the risks We run in travelling, we would count up all the various kinds of railway disasters we have ever heard of, and say that these were what we feared. How many would stop to think of the myriads of ip- visible enemies to human life that are lurking in the comfortable and luxuriantly upholstered carriages themselves?
 Yet there they are, and without doubt thousands of the cases of in. fectious diseases that occur day after day, without any source of con- tagion ever being discovered, are caused by micro-organisms absorbed into the system during railway travel Outside of a laboratory IL would be difficult to find more con- genial home and breeding place for microbes than a modern upholstered railway carriage. Nearly all disease causing bacilli thrive in moderately warm and dimiy lighted surround ings. Fresh air and abundance of bright sunshine are detrimental to their growth; the crowded third class carriages of most railway lines rare- ly receive enough of these two ele- ments to disturb their minute lodg- CTS.
 A slight degree of humidity is also necessary for the comfort of certain microbes. This moisture is generally applied by the relays of passengers who, by the simple act Ot breathing, keep the air sufficiently moist. so that there is no danger of the microbes being destroyed by desiccation. The hair and other ma terials used for slufing the seats and backs of the compartments are ad- mirably suited for microbe culture. Those bacilli that particularly dis like sunlight and fresh air are very comfortable here, and they receive a fine incubating heat from the bodies of the passengers.
 It is quite commonly believed thsi disease germs will only live for few days away from the person whoso disease bred them. This has been ccnclusively proved by experiments not to be the case. The micro-or- ganisms of typhoid, tuberculosis and cerebro-spinal fever have been known to retain their virulence after
 months of exposure to ordinary con-
 ditions. It might be asked what
 were the diseases whose specific
 micro-Organisms could be planted in
 railway carriages. pr Hamer. in his
 very interesting book on hygiene,
 says: The breath. presumably. often acts as a source of infection
 in measles. whoOping cough. scarlet fever. diphtheTia. typhus and
 humps and possibly in pneumonia ! and smallpox. Dried sputa are as-
 stunned to be largely operative in prO-
 noting the spread of phthisis (con- sumption Of the lungsD."
 In this las; disease. tuberculosis of the lungs. lies the greatest danger ! tn railway travel. People who take much thought of their personal hy- gieue in all other ways do not com-
 plain against spending hours at | time in an ill-vcntilated. rarely (if evert. disinfected. compartment. that
 makes a home in it's dusty cushions | for tubercIe bacilli received from hundreds of former eonsumptive pas | senEers-
 Tuberculosis is not the only dan. { ger of sleeping berths. A writer o7 { the subject in the Lancet last year f said that smaIIoox and scarlet fever i are much more readily conveyed by { bedding etc. than consumption. Ths question Of compelling advanced | tuberculosis patients to travel in Epes i cfzl compartments brings up again
 the knOttv point Of compulsory noti. 9 frztf0n- Two cf the largest transs ' continental lines in America are cone { siderinz the question of refusing t1 E sell tickets for ordinary trains to any F one suspected os having tubercul losis or other contagious disease unless E authorized bF bhs health oEcsr of K the district uhs-s the ticket is soi5. E As saon ss fzhsrCulosis is o=Eizliy
 placed oa the list cf coztzg50zs dis
 eases bT the United States govern Ee1f. i1 fs erected that this rza E E-1 E1 z-F~-na4 4-Ir-So- Mail