Dangerous communicable diseases, how spread, how restricted and prevented : data and statements supplied to School Superintendents and Teachers by the Michigan State Board of Health, in compliance with Act No. 146, Laws of 1895.

  • Michigan. State Board of Health.
Date:
190.3
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dangerous communicable diseases, how spread, how restricted and prevented : data and statements supplied to School Superintendents and Teachers by the Michigan State Board of Health, in compliance with Act No. 146, Laws of 1895. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    most familiar disease known. In its epidemic form, popularly known as “grippe,” it has prevailed very ex- tensively during the last ten years. Influenza is caused by a specific organism peculiar to this disease, discovered by Pfeiffer in 1892. Germs of influenza are found in the bronchial and nasal secretions, and in the sputa of those suffering from the disease. The disease is, at times, a very serious one, it having caused in Michigan, during the first four months of the year 1899, 1,645 deaths. It is usually accompanied or closely followed by epidemics of pneumonia and meningitis, while deaths from consumption following much later are usually greatly increased. In such cases meteoro- logical conditions are primarily responsible for a lack of power to resist not only the influenza organism, but also those organisms which directly cause pneumonia, meningitis and consumption. Diphtheria.—Diphtheria is due to the presence in the throat of an organism peculiar to this disease alone. The result of its activities is a most powerful poison, and it is to this poison rather than to the injury to the tissues of the throat that the sickness and death from diphtheria are due. The organisms of diphtheria often remain in the throat weeks after apparent recovery from the disease. During this period they may retain their virulence, and sputa containing them is then dangerous. This is an important fact, and constitutes the danger of permit-