The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-10-06
UBIQUITY OF THE
 DIPHTHERIA BACILLUS.
Widespread Prevalence of, This Germ
 Among Unsuspecting Persons.

It has long been known that diph- theria germs are present in the throats of many perfectly healthy
 persons and that many cases of this disease may be accounted for only by
 their infection from such "carriers."
 To what extent these germs occur
 among healthy persons has been point that has never been dednately
 determined some workers claiming
 that teas many as one in every twenty
 persons carried these germs and dis
 tributed them more or less 1nd1s-
 criminateIy. To determine this point
 the U s. Public Health Service con
 ducted an investigation of the pre-
 vaIence of diphtheria4 carriers in the
 city of Detroit during the winter of 1913-14 This investigation stands as
 one of the most thorough and pains
 taking researches of it's kind.
 Should this report be read by all
 of the inhabitants of Detroit over
 4, 900 of them would recall the visit
 of the Health Officer who examined
 their noses and throats and took IsscuItures'' from both locations.
 Tn the laboratory the officers of the service examined the 8,758 cultures taken from 4,o93 persons; five from an average of 153 cultures day. The results of this examination were that very nearly one per cent.--.92S per cent. to be exact-of all the per sons examined was found to carry diphtheria, germs in their throat or nose or both.
 One per cent AU<s- not ordinarily sound large to thu s4---age person, but let us see what fr means to the indi- vidual In time of epidemic prevail ence probably one in every hundred persons he meets has diphtheria germs in his throat and in all prob ability on his hands and clothes as well, since it is one of the most, com mon practices in the world to put the hand to the mouth. It is prob able that the average individual comes in cohtact with a hundred or more persons every day and is hence prac- ticalIy daily exposed to infection with diphtheria. Some persons, mainly those remaining at home, associate with but few, but other members of the household are not so isolated. School children come in close contact often with more than a hundred oth- CT sin a day Occasionally one may even see a hundred persons on a 1 single street car and none will doubt | that many more than that number will cough into the air of a theatre l during an evening. I
 To demonstrate further what one 1 per cent. means, let us see what are the actual figures. In 1914 the off, | cfaI census of Detroit was 537, ,65O- One per cent of this is 5.376. It 1 would be difficult indeed for any one | living in Detroit to avoid contact with one, two, five or more of these 5,376 l disseminators of diphtheria germs Nor is there reason to believe that in | time of epidemic the figures for any other large community are lower in 
 These data, gathered by the Public Health Service. as well as data of the same nature obtained by other work ers, demonstrate one of many reasons for personal care of the throat and | nose, avoidance of too intimate con- tact with others, and the necessity of early preventive measures in the case 1f those suffering from .tsore-throat" and lesions suspicious of diphtheria.