Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, September 1899: Vol. LV, May to October, 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, September 1899: Vol. LV, May to October, 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
(3) By deglutition. That the disease may be acquired by taking the
bacillus into the alimentary canal has been demonstrated by
experiments upon animals of various kinds.
The sputum of patients suffering from the pneumonic form of the
disease is filled with the bacilli. The germs are also found,
sometimes at least, in the discharges from the bowels and kidneys.
That the infection may be transported in clothing and rags has been
long known. The following extract from a memoir by Sir John Hay, then
minister from England to Morocco, indicates that the plague was
introduced into Morocco in 1826 by means of infected articles of
clothing: "The danger from plague by contagion can not, however, to my
mind be called in question. That dire disease was introduced into
Morocco about the year 1826 by an English frigate, which our
Government had dispatched to Alexandria, where the plague was then
raging, to convey from that port to Tangier two sons of the Sultan,
returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca. No case of plague or other
illness had occurred on board the frigate during the voyage, and the
Sultan's sons and other passengers were allowed to land at Tangier.
"The customs officers, being suspicious that, in the numerous boxes
brought by the pilgrims who had been permitted to embark with the
Moorish princes, contraband goods were being smuggled, caused some of
the cases to be opened. One contained Egyptian wearing apparel, which
the owner said he had bought second hand, and subsequently confessed
had belonged to a person who had died of the plague in Alexandria. The
two Moorish officials who opened the boxes were attacked with the
plague that night and died in a few hours. The disease spread rapidly
throughout Morocco, carrying off eighty per cent of those who were
attacked."
I mention these facts in order to emphasize the desirability of
disinfecting all articles liable to carry the infection coming from
infected places.
Professor Haffkine's preventive inoculation against the plague is
still being largely employed in India. This consists in injecting
hypodermically sterilized cultures of the bacillus. No curative action
is claimed for this treatment, but it is believed to be protective
against the disease. It is stated that more than eighty thousand
people in India have undergone this form of vaccination, and that the
death rate among these has been exceedingly low. However, it is well
to be careful in accepting statistical statements on a matter of this
nature. In the first place, it is probable that only the more
intelligent will submit to vaccination, and these will also employ
other means of protecting themselves against the disease. In the
second place, there are many thousands of people exposed to the
infection, or at least live in infected districts, who have never been
vaccinated and who do not acquire the disease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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