Epidemics : their origin and prevention / by J. Foster Palmer.

  • Palmer, J. Foster (James Foster)
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemics : their origin and prevention / by J. Foster Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    defined, may come in time to be regarded as a super- stition as great as the view of demoniacal possession is now.'^ As, however, the germ-theory of disease is now the commonly accepted one, we must employ it provision- ally until it is either proved or discarded. In spite of the extensive, prolonged, and patient researches of all the pathologists of modern times, assisted as they have been by so many discoveries in collateral branches of science, in spite also of the dog- matic assertions of some observers, it is not too much to say that at present we are in a state of very com- plete ignorance as to the origin and causes of epidemics. An observer of great mental capacity and indomitable perseverance will devote his life to tracing the causes of cholera, and will state with confidence that it is both con tagious and infectious; another with equal talents ai id experience will as confidently assert that it is not We all live in fear and trembling at the mere thought of a defective drain. Sewer gas is constantly associated in our minds with all kinds of frightful epidemics; yet the connection is far from being understood. Many of our fellow-citizens spend the greater part of their lives * If disease germs are conscious beings they must laugh at our impotent attempts to annihilate them by constantly squirting at them with carbolic acid without even having discovered their actual position. Man in the 19th century, firing carbolic acid in all directions on the chance of hitting a stray germ here and there, will form the subject of a farce for future ages. In point of fact, the sphere of utility of disinfectants is extremely limited. In the presence of an epidemic they are almost useless. It is doubtful whether the most potent of them can really arrest infection. They can never take the place of comprehensive general sanitary work and individual action. At the same time they often lull people into a sense of false security while they fail to diminish the infec- tion of the atmosphere in any appreciable degree. They may sometimes assist in the isolation of a single case of zymotic disease, but until we can catch all the germs in the air and water and steep them in carbolic acid^ we shall not prevent a single epidemic by disinfectants, however potent.