The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1916-12-06
LIFE A CONTINUOUS
STRUGGLE TO LIVE
THE sun A DOCTOR


as to how diseases are transmitted
need considerable revision.
People still labor under the delusion
that infectious diseases are spread by
contact with things, while the fact is
that infected individuals, not things,
are the real menace. Some are afraid
to touch car strap or a book that
has been used by strangers, and some,
much as they Like money, insist on
having new bills, and only under the
stress of unavoidable circumstances
will they break the rule and take what
they can get.
DR.. Alvah H. Doty, formerly health
officer of the Port of New York, has
quite recently discussed the subject,
showing the foolishness of the dear,
deluded people in their fear that in.
lection turks everywhere in public con-.
veyances, in clothing, money, rags,
and car straps and that diseases are
conveyed through any such means. If
infectious diseases were really convey
ed by such media, one of the best car
riers imaginable would be old rags,
and a test of this theory would be
found in the rag markets of Alexan-
dria, Egypt, where the rags are large
ly the cast off clothing of the natives,
much of which is gathered from the
interior where infectious diseases are
always prevalent. Yet the British
sanitary officers have never discovered
infection among the men, women and
children whose sole occupation is to
handle the rather disgusting merchan-
disc.
In the bureau at Washington, where
old currency is received for redemp-
ton, infectious diseases has never &C.
Cured among the clerks who handle
it.
1t is customary to fumigate the
room that has been occupied by tu-
bereulous patient. Tits wise precau-
ton, yet its greatest actual benefit is
the moral satisfaction that every pos
sible precaution has been taken
against the spread of the disease. A
careful exposure of the bedding and
other articles used by the patient to
the bright sun and fresh air would be
much more effective than the formal
dehyde bath or the sulphur candle.
The reason is that the tubercular
bacillus, as well as those most infec-
tious diseases, dies and loses its ca
pacity for harm within a short time,
after it has been expelled from TIE
mouth, throat or lungs of the patient
1t cannot be lodged in the bedding, on
the walls or furniture and remain for
long an active menace. 1t cannot re-
main suspended in the air and retain
its power for activity, but expelled by
the cough or sneeze into the face, the
mouth or nostrils of another person, it
becomes dangerous, for it Immediately
finds Judgment in the new host where
every condition favors continued &C.
tivity. 1t is in such manner that the
diseases Of the throat and lungs are
Observation-Disclosures, colds, in
fuenza and bronchitis. And it seems
that the infected individual is the real
menace to his fellows-man is mans
worst enemy when it comes to the
of infectious diseases.
Another class of infection, such as
malaria, and yellow fever, is carried
by the mosquito and those insect pests
become dangerous. But they can be
themselves infected only by and from
the human host, and again the infect
ed man is the enemy to his fellow
men.
The millennium is pictured in mag
nation as a time when the dangers
that now threaten and disturb the
morals and happiness of mortals will
be reduced to an inappreciable mini
mum. In health matters it will be
the time when diseases, especially in
fectious diseases, will be banished,
and therefore cannot be spread, and
the fight for health will be thing of
the past. 1t is no idle dream that
such diseases may be banished, for
typhoid has been limited and
so successfully that the
prospect that it may become rare
disease within the next few decades is
most promising, and it is at least i'm
aginable that other human ailments
may be conquered to the same degree
and by similar methods.