Sanitation and health / by R.C. Hart.

  • Hart, R.C. (Reginald Clare), 1848-1931.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sanitation and health / by R.C. Hart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    consumption and of other diseases. If horses or cattle eat the grass that grows on the graves of animals that have died of certain diseases, they are liable to contract the disease. Captain Hayes writes that the anthrax * germ exists as a kind of fungus on certain pastures, and communicates the disease to animals which graze on, or are fed from, these infected lands/' Flies play a large part in the distribution of the anthrax disease, and probably of many other diseases. Fluids possess the property of absorbing noxious gases. Water absorbs about three times its volume of sulphuretted hydrogen—recognised by the odour of rotten eggs—a deadly poison and a constant product of decay. Fluids used for drinking pur- poses are often polluted by absorption, and none more so than milk, which is a suitable medium for the absorption and the growth of germs. In this way scarlet and enteric fevers are spread by milkf This pollution by absorption is quite apart from direct defilement by mixture with poisonous sub- stances, whether solid or fluid. * Anthrax—a very catching disease of horses, cattle and sheep.