Contagion

“ In all epidemics which increase to such a degree as to become contagious, it is of importance to distinguish which of these causes are the more powerful, the predisposing or epidemic causes, which originate the proneness to the disease, or the proximate causes, among which, in the generality of cases, contagion is the most prominent. ”

“ I am of opinion, with others, that the exhalations or excretions of the sick are the vehicles of contagion. It is these which impregnate the atmosphere with noxious matter: they affect in like manner bed-clothes, or apparel, and every thing that can imbibe them, when in contact with the diseased body. ”

“ By the rupture of these vessels, or by a new construction of their apertures, purulent matters are secreted of various kinds; which are infectious the first time they are applied to the skin beneath the cuticle, or swallowed with the saliva into the stomach. This contagion acts not by its being absorbed into the circulation, but by the sympathies, or associated actions, between the part first stimulated by the contagious matter and the other parts of the system. Thus in the natural small-pox the contagion is swallowed with the saliva, and by its stimulus inflames the stomach ”

“ This contagion is beyond question a living something which multiplies with great rapidity under proper conditions, and, escaping from the bodies of those infected with the disease, in one way or another, reaches other individuals. It is beyond question true that the virus passes from the body of those infected by means of the urine and feces, and it [Pg 189] is likely that the secretions from the mouth and nose frequently contain the germs that cause the fever. ”

“ Whence a strong reason against our hazarding inoculation before that age is passed, especially in crowded towns; except where the vicinity of the natural contagion renders it necessary, or the convenience of inoculating a whole family at a time; as it then becomes better to venture the less favourable circumstances of the age of the patient, or the chance of the pain from toothing, than to risk the infection in the natural way. ”

“ Contagious matter is lodged in goods of a loose and soft texture, which being packed up, and carried into other countries, let out, when opened, the imprisoned seeds of contagion, and produce the disease whenever the air is disposed to give them force, "otherwise they may be dispersed without any considerable ill effects." ”

“ Infection is a more comprehensive term than contagion, as it may be used in alluding to all germ diseases, while the use of the term contagion is rightly limited to such diseases as are produced principally through individual contact. ”

“ Forewarned is forearmed, and it has been found that to know the cause of a disease is a long step toward avoiding it. As some of our contagious and epidemic diseases have been studied in the light of bacteriological knowledge, it has been found possible to determine not only their cause, but also how infection is brought about, and consequently how contagion may be avoided. ”

“ What happens to fixed air may also happen to contagion. The basis of it may have a tendency to unite itself to cotton, or such like substances, and thus may not only infect them, but concentrate itself to such a degree as to produce a disease much more violent than that of the person who gave the infection;226 and something of this kind has even been observed with regard to infected cotton. ”

“ But it is obvious that in the majority of cases it must be impossible to decide by which of these channels the disease is conveyed, from the nature of the intercourse between the physician and the patient.
3. It is not pretended that the contagion of puerperal fever must always be followed by the disease. It is true of all contagious diseases, that they frequently spare those who appear to be fully submitted to their influence. Even the vaccine virus, fresh from the subject, fails every day to produce its legitimate effect, though every precaution is taken to insure its action. ”

“ The air about poor patients is more infectious than about the rich. These things being established, I am of opinion that, in the greatest contagion, we may securely see a patient at the distance of two ells, if the chamber windows be not all shut.——Fra. Luigi: The infection is greater or less in proportion to the virulence of the contagion; but I have made no observation as to the distance. The disease is communicated by contact of all infected things, and by close inspiration of the breath of the sick.
4. What are the seasons in which the plague chiefly appears ”

“ Scarlet fever, while contagious at all periods, is probably most so during the period of desquamation. The organism may cling to furniture, clothing, etc., and reproduce the disease after very long periods. The contagion may be carried by persons coming in contact with the sick, or the disease may be transmitted through the air of the sick-room or through clothing, utensils, etc., which have been used by the sick. ”

“ The quantity of the turbid liquid which attaches itself to the finest needle-point suffices to infect any amount of the infusion, just as the vaccine lymph taken up on the point of a surgeon's lancet spreads disease through the whole body. Here, also, as in the case of contagious disease, there was a period of incubation. In proof of what the lecturer had stated that the contagion of these communicable diseases was not gaseous or liquid, but solid particles, he would describe an experiment he had made only a few weeks since. ”

“ Then the physicians began to consider, for they did not at first dream of a general contagion. But the physicians being sent to inspect the bodies, they assured the people that it was neither more or less than the plague, with all its terrifying particulars, and that it threatened an universal infection, so many people having already conversed with the sick or distempered, and having, as might be supposed, received infection from them, that it would be impossible to put a stop to it. ”

“ For although the presence of lung-dew in any quantity gives intimation that all is not right, the specific malady is not indicated with certainty. The application of certain tests to the patient is necessary to discover the particular disease with the incipient germs of which he is afflicted.
Disease and contagion difficult to deal with in their advanced stages, when they have already made their presence known by symptoms too palpable to be disregarded, are easily mastered in their germ. ”

“ In numbers of instances of this kind the children were evidently in good health, and yet would perhaps be seized at an after period when no more exposed to contagion than they had been at first.
“Small-pox, measles, and other general diseases, which occur only once during life, never disappear, until the whole of those who have been within the infectious distance, and were not at the time labouring under some disease higher in degree, have received the infection. ”

“ THIS then being the Case of a Contagion, that a Person having a Fever, critically throws off poisonous Effluvia, which were generated during such irregular Motions of the animal Fluids, insomuch as to diffuse for some Distance round, what will infect other Persons within their reach; and that so many have got this Infection, that no Part of the Air, for some Tract of the Country together, is free from them; the poisonous Atmospheres, if they may be so termed, of the infected, extending and mixing into one universal, common Contagion ”

“ The Progress of an Epidemic That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most unlikely constitutions: is a fact as firmly established by experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere. ”

“ Those who hold to the doctrine of contagion admit that, to give such contagion efficacy in the production of wide spread results, filth or decaying organic matter is essential; while those who sustain the theory of non-contagion—the production of the poison from sources without the bodies of the sick—contend that it has its entire origin in such filth—in decomposing matter, especially in fermenting sewage, and decaying human excreta. ”

“ Contagion is properly a poisoning of one individual from contact with a diseased individual in some way known or unknown. It may be conveyed indirectly through clothes, etc., or other person; but always comes from some person sick with the same disease. Diseases may be both infectious and contagious. Nearly all the epidemic diseases of infancy are both infectious and contagious and accompanied by fever. ”

“ How far any such disease may have been prevented from invading new countries, or from spreading from any particular center, by measures directed against contagion. Above all, to determine what is the nature, and what the true value, of the evidence supposed to show that the specific poison of a contagious disease may originate spontaneously, or be generated de novo. "What we most want to know," adds Budd, "in regard to this whole group of diseases is, where and how the specific poisons which cause them breed and multiply." ”

“ For very frequently cases which were not to be explained on the principle of contagion communicated by persons diseased, occurred among people of rank, and manifestly arose independently of the usual causes. ”

“ The disease may be propagated at the most early stage of the eruption; and, if I was to be allowed to conjecture on the subject, I would say, that the contagion is the offspring of the catarrh (the cough and hoarseness resembling a cold) which accompanies the measles.
“Substances imbued with the exhalations from infected bodies, if not exposed to the air, have their powers of communicating the disease increased; or, in other words, the infection from fomites (infected cotton, clothes, &c.) is said to become more virulent than it was when first separated from the body. ”

“ The action of the matter of contagion seems to stand on the confines between electro-chemical and bio-chemical manifestations, and so long as no chemical explanation can be given for the multiplication of the matter of infection, the most rational course to adopt is to assume that life under some unknown form is, as we every where find it, the sole reproductive agent. ”

“ It may be proper to ask here how long it may be supposed men might have the seeds of the contagion in them before it discovered265 itself in this fatal manner, and how long they might go about seemingly whole, and yet be contagious to all those that came near them. ”

“ Whence it appears that the contagion impressed upon or deposited in a particular part, is by-and-by carried by the returning current of blood to the heart, and by that organ is sent to contaminate the whole body. ”

“ In like manner, when several members of a family contract tuberculosis, diphtheria, or measles, do they not get the disease because they all lived in the same manner and were exposed to like influences, instead of through contagion or infection with germs? Disease is sometimes spread, however, through the contagion of fear and suggestion. ”

“ Suppose on the other hand we apply the term infectious to diseases in which the levity of the particulate living germ allows of its being inhaled into the body of the susceptible animal, the case becomes one of simple mediate contagion, the air acting as the intermediate bearer. ”

“ Such simultaneous eruptions of disease, in different distant places, appear incompatible with the hypothesis of contagion—irreconcileable with the belief that it arises from, and is communicated by one body to another, either directly or indirectly, either by recent emanations from a diseased body acting speedily on proximate healthy bodies, or by the same emanations, in a concrete form—called formites—acting on distant healthy bodies, after uncertain lapses of time. ”

“ It is true that, as several physicians told my Lord Mayor, the fury of the contagion was such at some particular times, and people sickened so fast and died so soon, that it was impossible, and indeed to no purpose, to go about to inquire who was sick and who was well, or to shut them up with such exactness as the thing required, almost every house in a whole street being infected, and in many places every person in some of the houses ”

“ Every one brings in his part to inflame the contagion, which becomes at last so universal and so strong, that no precepts can be sufficient preservatives, nor anything secure our safety, but flight from among the infected. ”

“ The next thing after the purifying of Houses, is to consider by what Means particular Persons may best defend themselves against Contagion; for the effectual doing of which it would be necessary to put the Humours of the Body into such a State, as not to be alterable by the Matter of Infection. ”

“ The only important point to be ascertained is, whether there be in nature any substance which, applied to the internal parts of the body, or to a wound, will instantly disorder the whole in such a manner as to bring on a violent disease which may prove mortal in a short time. If any such there is, that substance, whether solid or fluid, visible or invisible, may with propriety be called contagion; and if any such proceeds222 from the body of a diseased person to one in health, the vapour so proceeding is infection. ”

“ If you go into the company of persons that are sick with the measles, hooping-cough, smallpox, or any contagious disorder, in a short time you will be taken with the same disease. The very atmosphere of the room where they stay is full of contagion, and you will draw it in with your breath. ”