The private sanatoria for consumptives and the treatment adopted within them / by Arthur von Jaruntowsky ; translated with permission of the author, by E. Clifford Beale.

Date:
[1897]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The private sanatoria for consumptives and the treatment adopted within them / by Arthur von Jaruntowsky ; translated with permission of the author, by E. Clifford Beale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    phthisis occurred, but observed on the other hand that a disposition to tuberculosis acquired elsewhere in youth generally disappeared on removal to the mountains, and was able frequently to verify cases of healing in patients who had brought the disease with them from France. Gauster observed the same thing in the Austrian Alps. He also found that in certain districts of definite geological formation over 730 feet above sea level, Consumption was infinitely rare and established the fact that cases brought from elsewhere were healed. In Goerbersdorf which has over goo inhabitants and lies 561 metres above sea-level, Consumption very rarely occurs. In the course of 26 years, i.e. 1854 to 1880 hardly 5 of the actual inhabitants of the place died from pulmonary tuberculosis, (or annually 0.18).* Most of the therapeutists of to-day lay the chief stress in the climatic treatment of consumption upon purity of the air. By purity of the air according to the most recent investigations and especially Pasteur’s admirable work, is to be understood its freedom not only from inorganic but also organic particles. Everyone knows that superficial ulcers which are protected from impurity of air and especially from micro-organisms by means of aseptic dressings are much more quickly and perfectly healed. It is obvious that the tubercular ulcerations in the lungs also may be expected to become cleansed and healed sooner in a pure aseptic atmosphere than in air which is saturated with micro-organisms. The important part played by the latter in association with the tubercle bacillus in the progress of phthisis has been repeatedly demonstrated of late years. The question therefore as to where the purest air is to be found—that is to say the air which is relatively freest from micro-organisms—becomes in consequence of special importance. For the answer to this question, bacterio- logical investigations such as those of Miquel are significant. These go to prove that the air in towns and their environs swarms with micro-organisms but that among the mountains their number becomes steadily less in correspondence with the height of any given area above the sea-level. To ensure purity of air it is necessary in the second place that there should be freedom from inorganic particles. The air must above all be free from dust. For dust not only facilitates the carriage of bacteria but when it has penetrated into the lung exercises mechanical irritation of inflamed parts and causes cough. Unluckily dust is to be found everywhere, even on the high seas, * Brehmer 1. c.
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