Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883
Various
Science -- Periodicals
"In those places where infectious diseases, according to experience, are
prevalent and unusually severe and frequent, it is necessary to abstain
as much as possible from the employment of water taken from without the
ship for cleansing said vessel, and also for washing out the hold when
the water of the sea or of a river, in the judgment of the commander of
a vessel, confirmed by the statement of the physician, is shown to be
surcharged with organic matter liable to putrefaction. With this end in
view, if you are unable to send elsewhere for suitable water, you must
make use of good and fresh water, but with the greatest economy. In that
event the purification of the hold must be accomplished by mechanical
means or by disinfectants."
"As I have demonstrated by my investigations that in the distillation
of paludal water, and that from the marshy shores of the sea, the
Limnophysalis hyalina, which is impalpable, is carried away and may be
detected again after the distillation, it must be insisted that the
water intended to be used for drinking on shipboard shall be carefully
filtered before and after its distillation."
The Klebs-Tommasi and Dr. Sternberg's report, as summarized in the
Supplement No. 14, National Board of Health Bulletin, Washington, D.C.,
July 18, I would cordially recommend to all students of this subject.
I welcome these observers into the field. Nothing but good can come from
such careful and accurate observations into the cause of disease. For
myself I am ready to say that it may be that the Roman gentlemen have
bit on the cause of the Roman fever, which is of such a pernicious type.
I do not see how I can judge, as I never investigated the Roman fever;
still, while giving them all due credit, and treating them with respect,
in order to put myself right I may say that I have long ago ceased to
regard all the bacilli, micrococci, and bacteria, etc., as ultimate
forms of animal or vegetable life. I look upon them as simply the
embryos of mature forms, which are capable of propagating themselves
in this embryonal state. I have observed these forms in many diseased
conditions; many of them in one disease are nothing but the vinegar
yeast developing, away from the air, in the blood where the full
development of the plant is not apt to be found. In diphtheria I
developed the bacteria to the full form--the Mucor malignans. So in the
study of ague, for the vegetation which seems to me to be connected with
ague, I look to the fully developed sporangias as the true plant.
Again, I think that crucial experiments should be made on man for his
diseases as far as it is possible. Rabbits, on which the experiments
were made, for example, are of a different organization and food than
man, and bear tests differently. While there are so many human beings
subject to ague, it seems to me they should be the subjects on whom the
crucial tests are to be made, as I did in my labors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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