Disease and Its CausesCouncilman, W. T. (William Thomas)
Science
Disease and Its Causes
Councilman, W. T. (William Thomas)
Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation
There are also mixed infections in which two different organisms unite
in attack, each in some way assisting in the action of the other. The
best known example of this is in the highly infectious disease of
swine known as hog cholera. It has been shown that in this disease two
organisms are associated,--one an invisible and filterable organism,
and the other a bacillus. It was first supposed that the bacillus was
the specific organism; it was found in the lesions and certain, but
not all, the features of the disease were produced by inoculating hogs
with pure cultures. The disease so produced is not contagious, and the
contagious element seems to be due to the filterable virus.
The modes of transmission of infectious diseases are of great
importance and are the foundation of measures of public health. In the
preceding chapter we have seen that in the infected individual the
disease extends from one part of the body to another. There is a
primary focus of disease from which the extension takes place, and the
study of the modes of extension in the individual throws some light on
the much more difficult subject of the transmission of disease from
one individual to another. There are four ways by which extension in
the individual may take place.
1. By continuity of tissue, an adjoining tissue or organ becoming
infected by the extension of a focus of infection.
2. By means of lymphatics. Organisms easily enter these vessels which
are in continuity with the tissue spaces and receive the exudate from
the focus of infection. The organisms are carried to the lymph nodes,
which, acting as filters, retain them and for a time prevent a further
extension. The following illustrates the importance of the part the
nodes may play in mechanically holding back a flood of infection. A
physician examined after death the body of a person who died from
infection with a very virulent micrococcus and in the course of the
examination slightly scratched a finger. One of the organs of the body
was removed, sent to a laboratory and received by a laboratory worker,
a woman physician, who had slight abrasions and fissures in the skin
of the hands from contact with irritating chemicals. In the course of
a few hours the wound on the finger of the man became inflamed,
intensely painful, and red lines extended up the arm in the course of
the lymphatic vessels, showing that the organisms were in the
lymphatics and causing inflammation in their course. The lymph nodes
in the armpit into which these vessels empty became greatly inflamed,
swollen, and an abscess formed in them which was opened. There was
high fever, great prostration, a serious illness from which the man
did not recover for several months. The woman only handled the organ
which was sent to the laboratory in order to place it in a fluid for
preservation. She also had a focus of infection of a finger with the
same red lines on the arm, showing extension by the lymphatics; but
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