Contagiousness

“ Arm’s length is the striking distance of a contagious disease. There’s a truth for all of us to remember all the time.”
“If it is a truth,” challenged Mrs. Sharpless. “One of the surest and one of the most important,” averred the Health Master. “The only substance that carries the contagion of diphtheria or measles is the mucus from the nose or throat of an infected person. As far as that can be coughed or sneezed is the danger area. Of course, any article contaminated with it is dangerous also. But a hygienically conducted schoolroom is as safe a place as could be found. ”

“ The contagious disease, spreading from the head to the members—from the Pope to lesser prelates—has spread far and wide, so that scarcely any one is to be found who does right, and who is free from infection. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Contagion is communicated sometimes with the utmost ease, if the new victim be in a receptive condition, and in the presence of any disease, even the most simple, it is well to take every precaution. The mucous surfaces are peculiarly ready to absorb infection of many kinds. Measles is easily absorbed from pocket handkerchiefs, as are also scarlet fever, whooping-cough and other diseases. By inhalation through the nostrils or mouth, scarlet fever, measles, whooping-cough, mumps, diphtheria, dysentery, cholera and even pneumonia and meningitis may be communicated. ”

“ Every epidemic that sweeps through our communities is a testimony to the crying need of education in regard to such simple facts as the source of infectious material, the methods of its distribution, and the means of rendering it harmless.
PREVENTION IN INOCULATION. It has long been recognised that in most cases recovery from one attack of a contagious disease renders an individual more or less immune against a second attack. It is unusual for an individual to have the same contagious disease twice. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Contagia (microbes or germs) of the acute infectious diseases are minute living organisms, known as bacteria. Hence these diseases may be carried about by currents of air, some much more easily than others. Some of the contagia have a persistent vitality. Thus the contagia of scarlet fever, diphtheria, or small-pox may infect a room for months, causing the disease in question, when infected articles in the room are disturbed. The contagia of typhus fever and of measles, on the other hand, are short-lived, and do not usually resist free ventilation and exposure to sunlight. ”

“ For in the present Case, when Infection has seized any Part of a Country, much greater Care ought to be taken, that no Seeds of the Contagion be conveyed about, than when the Distemper is at a great Distance: because a Bale of Goods, which shall have imbibed the Contagious Aura when pack’d up in Turky, or any remote Parts, when unpack’d here, may chance to meet with so healthful a Temperament of our Air, that it shall not do much hurt. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Using the word contagious in its proper sense of communicable by contact, and regarding the typhoid-poison as a parasite whose nidus is in the glands of the bowel, we are led to the conclusion that the disease to which it gives rise, though undoubtedly infectious, can scarcely be contagious. We know from our experience that it is not so; for it never spreads in hospitals, and attendants on the sick suffer no more than other people. ”

“ As the contagion of the disease may be taken into the body, and pass out of it without producing the fever, unless it be rendered active by some occasional cause, the following means should be attended to, to prevent the contagion being excited into action in the body. ”

“ The Causes therefore of these Diseases must either be generated in the Air, or produced from the Effluvia of Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral Substances floating in it. And consequently the Effects of the Contagious Particles must be extreamly various, according to the Qualities of the Bodies from which they are produced.
When any of these Causes is of so deleterious a Nature, as not only to be Infectious, but to destroy all or most of those that are affected by it, That Disease is called a Pestilence. ”

“ When the germs of the virus mature in the living being, ready for reproduction in another person, they produce the acute contagious diseases, including small-pox, chicken-pox, scarlet fever, typhns fever, relapsing fever; measles, miliary fever, influenza, whooping-cough, and hydrophobia. ”

“ A disease like measles or small-pox, which can be transmitted from person to person, without immediate contact between the two, is termed infectious. In these cases the285 infection is conveyed by mucus expectorated or by dust blown about, or carried in apparel, etc., from the first patient. Such diseases may also, of course, be communicated by direct contact. If direct contact between the sick and well is indispensable for the transmission of a disease it is called contagious. There is no such hard line in nature, although some diseases can be more easily communicated than others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The entire class of contagious diseases of man can be suspected on just grounds of being of bacterial origin. All analogies, and not a few separate observations, are in favor of this view, while against it no valid argument can be adduced; but it must be admitted that the absolute proof is as yet wanting. Many diseases also, not known to be contagious, like pneumonia, rheumatism, and Bright's disease, have been found associated with parasites, the rôle of which is yet uncertain. ”

“ In contagious diseases, infection proceeds chiefly from personal contact with a diseased person or objects that have been touched by him. In malarial diseases there is no danger from personal contact; the disease resulting clearly from a poisoned atmosphere. ”

“ Even the eyes of the patient were considered as sources of contagion [24] , which had the power of acting at a distance, whether on account of their unwonted lustre or the distortion which they always suffer in plague, or whether in conformity with an ancient notion, according to which the sight was considered as the bearer of a demoniacal enchantment. Flight from infected cities seldom availed the fearful, for the germ of the disease adhered to them, and they fell sick, remote from assistance, in the solitude of their country houses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are dangerous because they contain the germs which have been produced in them. What we see happen in the larger particles of skin happens also in many of the much smaller particles of contagion.
By the adoption of these various measures, by rigorously isolating the sufferer, and by having the room well ventilated, much, very much may be done to check the spread of contagious fevers. The matter of which organisms are composed is one of the most perishable things in nature. Contagion is no exception to the rule. By exposure to the air much of it is destroyed ”

“ Loathsome contagious diseases include those whose presence excites abhorrence in others, and which are essentially chronic, such as favus, ringworm of the scalp, parasitic fungus diseases, Madura foot, leprosy and venereal disease. Dangerous contagious diseases are such as trachoma, filariasis, hookworm infection, amœbic dysentery, and endemic hematuria. ”

“ In the latter, the name of the man, date of admission, and nature of disease, is placed over the bed of each patient, which in any contagious disease gives timely warning to any one fearing infection. ”

“ Shall we content ourselves with finding a heap of decomposing vegetable or animal matter, or rest satisfied by discovering an escape of sewer-gas from some untrapped drain into one or more of the houses? Since we—the reader and I—are scientific and reasonable people, we can not adopt the theory that the disease is contagious—an opinion held by some able but rather easy-going physicians—and having once effected a lodgment in the community is capable of infecting all who have systems favorable to the development of the poison. ”

“ There are no epidemical nor contagious diseases that attack every person who breathes the same air, or that is in contact with the infection, else whole regions would be depopulated. The habit must be graduated, or adapted, for the reception of a disease. ”

“ A disease is contagious when it is transmitted from the sick to the well by personal communication or contact, more or less intimate; and all contagious diseases are infectious—i. e., they are due to the introduction into the body of a susceptible individual of a living germ. But all infectious diseases are not contagious. Thus smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria, influenza, etc., are infectious diseases which are contagious ”

“ As the disease always appears with the same symptoms, it is not probably spontaneous, but the consequence of a particular contagion.——They: Some contagious fevers come of themselves; others proceed from the communication of contagion. The plague is thought to have originated in Egypt, and spread itself from thence.——Morandi: Contagious fevers do not arise of themselves, but are always the product of a peculiar poison—Verdoni: I know no fever that can properly be called contagious, and doubt if even the plague can be considered as such. ”

“ The air is at certain times and places contaminated by the products of respiration and the bodily emanations of diseased persons.
In certain diseases, commonly known as contagious, organic matters are thrown off by the lungs and skin of the sick, which tend to reproduce these diseases in the bodies of other persons. The exact nature of these poisons is in most cases unknown, but they are generally believed to be living microscopic organisms (bacteria, bacilli, micrococci, etc.) , which multiply their kind in the blood of the person who has inhaled them. ”