Faecal fermentation as a cause of disease : together with the general rules of treatment to be observed / by C.H.F. Routh.

  • Routh, C. H. F. (Charles Henry Felix), 1822-1909
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Faecal fermentation as a cause of disease : together with the general rules of treatment to be observed / by C.H.F. Routh. 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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    conditions:—1. The infecting source; 2. A transmitting medium; 3. A fit recipient. 1. The source of infection may be the person affected, fomites, his excretions, or, in fact, any personal part of him so contaminated. Such source is always more concentrated and potent at the outset of an epidemic, and the reverse towards the termination of it. 2. The transmitting medium may (a) liquid, or (h) gaseous. (a)\\s. the former case, as in the example of ino- culation, it may be the blood; it may be water holding any poison in suspension or solution; and, in fact, any other fluid which does not destroy the poison, applied externally or taken internally with food or drink, (h) In the latter case, it may be a gaseous or volatile substance mixed or suspended in the atmosphere. Now, of these two varieties of trans- mitting agents, the gaseous and the liquid^ the barometrical changes which influence the development of the one may he the very reverse of those which influence the spread of the other. Thus, the gaseous will be more energetic in hot and moist weather, and the liquid in moderately cold or temperate and dry weather; because, in hot and moist weather, the air is lighter, and the ammonia more volatile, which gas, with Robiquet, I believe to be a great adjuvant in the sus- pension of poisonous emanations in the air, especially when damp. Hence it is that in hot and moist weather many contagious diseases are rapidly conveyed and extended, whereas cold and dry weather will prove beneficial in its effect, the air being heavier, and the ammonia not only less volatile, but also less in quantity, because animal matters decompose less rapidly in cold weather. We are all aware how excessively foetid our London drains smell just before rain sets in, so much so as to be the ordinary and popular prognostic of rain in this town. According to Robiquet, as I have said, the qiiour of gaseous (which may also be con- tagious) matter is due to the volatility of the ammonia, which, as it were, raises it to the nose. Ammonia is, more- over, always evolved in the putrefaction of organic matters. It is also very generally produced in cases of disease, and is always emitted in contagious diseases. (See Liebig’s Agri- cultural Chemistry^ by Playfair, fourth edition.) In cold and dry weather, since the air is heavier, and the ammonia therefore not so volatile, all poisonous matter will be more likely retained in solution or suspension in the flowing or stagnant waters; unless, indeed, the cold be so extreme as to destroy all fermentation. In this case, the poison may.
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