common disease; or, in other words, that the same species of bacteria
attack in equal force several varieties of animals.
The explanation of this peculiarity is found in the variations of the
quality or intimate nature of the tissues and organs of different
species of animals. The same may be said of our own bodies--the
several organs vary greatly in their susceptibility to the attacks
of the different kinds of bacteria; hence the latter are classified
as specific and nonspecific, according as they cause specific or
nonspecific disease.
The distribution of bacteria is limited only by the existence of plants
and animals; that is, the existence of decomposing vegetable and animal
matter. Though they are more abundant in the earth where such matter
is found most abundantly, yet they abound in the air, the water, on
plants, animals, and insects, on our own bodies, and in every cavity
leading to the exterior. As bacteria are always searching for food, the
number present is a sure indication of the degree of cleanliness of the
thing, individual, or locality where they are found.
The movements of bacteria from one point to another are through the
medium of some other mode of conveyance than their own bodies afford.
Thus they are borne by the water, by vegetation, by animals of every
kind, especially insects, by the air on particles of dust. The typhoid
bacillus, borne in water and milk, has caused innumerable epidemics of
that dreaded disease.
[Sidenote: The Deadly Tubercle Bacillus]
The tubercle bacillus is borne on the air through the medium of
particles of dust, and in cities where the victims of tuberculosis
scatter these germs profusely in the streets, public conveyances,
churches, and places of resort, in the act of coughing, sneezing, and
spitting, the dust borne on the winds is a constant and most fertile
source of infection of tuberculosis. In a city like New York thousands
are annually infected by the dust-borne tubercle bacilli, not only
by inhaling them in the street, but even more certainly in the quiet
of their homes, where the germ-bearing dust accumulates in clothing,
bedding, carpets, rugs, and upholstered furniture, and is daily forced
into the air of the living rooms by broom and duster.
Foul as is the air of the unventilated tenements of the poor, it has
been demonstrated that the dust which saturates the furniture, carpets,
rugs, and hangings of residences of the wealthy contains sixty per cent
of street filth.
An authority says, “The most widely distributed pathogenic
microörganism (disease-causing bacterium) in the air is the tubercle
bacillus, the cause of consumption and a large variety of other
ailments, such as hipjoint disease, caries of the spine, etc. Over one
hundred thousand persons die annually from consumption alone in the
United States, and it is estimated that there are over two million
people afflicted with the disease in one form or another. All of these
sufferers are expectorating billions of tubercle bacilli daily.”
[Sidenote: How Bacteria Affect the Body]
Considering the second inquiry as to how infection affects the body,
we must constantly bear in mind that a bacterium, though a scavenger,
is a conservator of nature. Its real function in the orderly processes
of animal and vegetable life is to utilize waste for the preservation
and promotion of animal and vegetable life on this planet where the
conditions are so favorable to both.
Therefore, wherever we find bacteria in the active processes of growth,
that is, multiplication, we may be assured that they have found matter
that should be rescued from waste and converted into useful food for
plants. It follows that when we find a bacterium actively growing in
any part of our bodies, it has found some form of decaying matter that
is not only no longer useful to our bodies, but is in fact harmful and
should be removed.
It is also important to understand that waste matter is found under a
great variety of conditions, and that for its proper conversion into
useful food for plants there must be a correspondingly large number
of species of bacteria each having its special field of operation. It
is due to this variety of bacteria that there are so many infective
diseases; for each species of bacteria creates its own individual form
of disease.
This statement requires the following explanation, viz., a bacterium in
a quiescent state is harmless; everyone has within his body innumerable
bacteria, as the tubercle and typhoid bacilli; but they are inert, and
hence innocuous. It is only when they find their proper food, decaying
matter, that they begin to multiply, and in that act they secret a
poison, toxin, which is absorbed, and, entering the circulation, causes
in the individual a special class of symptoms peculiar to that toxin,
or poison.
These symptoms constitute a disease, the technical name of which is
usually fanciful, depending on some feature of the symptoms, but
explaining nothing as to its essential nature.
For example, the typhoid bacillus finds its food in certain minute
glands of the small bowels. If these glands are in a perfectly healthy
state when the bacillus enters the digestive tract, the germ will pass
over them and disappear from the body perfectly harmless. But if the
bacillus finds its appropriate food--dead or decomposing matter--in
the glands, it at once takes up its abode in them and “begins
housekeeping;” that is, it begins to multiply according to the method
of fission of its cell and rate of multiplication, already described.
During this process the multiplying cells excrete a toxin, which,
being absorbed, creates a fever, the result of a true blood poisoning.
This fever is called typhoid, because its prominent symptom, stupor,
resembles that of typhus fever. The name, therefore, signifies nothing
as to the nature of the disease.
[Sidenote: The Toxin Secreted]
The poisoning of the body by the excreted toxin of the multiplying
cells, which is simply plant food, occurs because it is removed only in
part by the digestive organs, the circulation that conveys it to the
other eliminating organs being efficient for that purpose. Could all
of this toxin be removed as fast as it is excreted, and not enter the
circulation, there would be no fever.
The termination of this process must be either the death of the colony
from exhaustion of the food supply in the glands, or the exhaustion
of the patient by the excess of toxins that accumulate in the body.
As the activity of the bacillus depends upon the food supplied, the
severity and length of the fever varies in different individuals. Some
are immune, because the glands that furnish the food of the typhoid
bacillus are in a state of high health; others have a brief and mild
attack, because the food supply is scant owing to a slight impairment
of the integrity of the glands; but with a considerable number in every
epidemic the food is ample to sustain the creation of an immense colony
of bacilli which destroys the victim by an overdose of poison.
The final disposition of the typhoid bacilli, after a course of fever,
was believed to be by their elimination from the body through the
various organs devoted to the discharge of waste products; but recent
investigations have proved that the typhoid bacillus may remain in the
body for long periods without apparently affecting the health of the
person, but when communicated to another, it will cause an attack of
fever of the most virulent type. In one instance an outbreak of typhoid
fever was traced to a woman who had fever upward of fifty years ago. It
was found that the excretions of her body contained immense quantities
of living typhoid bacilli. She was a cook by trade, and it was found
on tracing her history that wherever she had worked there had been
epidemics of typhoid.
A still more remarkable feature of the life history of the typhoid
bacillus has recently been made public. A typhoid epidemic was traced
to a nurse who had attended cases of typhoid fever, but had never
suffered from an attack of that disease, and yet was discharging large
quantities of the bacilli. These cases can be explained only on the
theory that these microörganisms find some place, possibly, as has been
suggested, in the gall bladder, where they find food sufficient to keep
them in an active state of multiplication, but where the conditions
prevent the absorption of the toxins they excrete.
How far these curious incidents in the life of the typhoid bacilli
are common to other bacilli is not known; but if it is true of other
infectious diseases, the fact will explain the origin of those obscure
and mysterious cases that occur without any known exposure to the
infection.
[Sidenote: Bacteria Aim to Destroy the Body]
In concluding this inquiry as to the nature of infection and its
effects on the body, the following statement of a biologist as to the
bacterium seems justified: “When it enters a living body, it aims
directly at the destruction of the latter. It multiplies rapidly, tends
to scatter its broods throughout the tissues, and all the while gives
off the most powerful poisons. This agent is wickedly implacable,
neither giving nor asking quarter. The battle that it wages with the
body can terminate only by the destruction of one of the combatants.”
Viewed in the light of the past history of infectious diseases, this
is not an overdrawn picture. If we estimate the deaths from smallpox
in ancient times, from cholera in modern times, and from tuberculosis
(consumption) throughout all time, the destruction of human life by
bacteria cannot be overstated. The bacterium has been a wickedly
implacable foe to the human race in the past. Invisible, intangible,
everywhere present, it has proved omnipotent in its destructive attacks
upon communities.
But our century opens with a far brighter outlook for the race.
Elementary forces which, through ignorance of their true functions in
the economy and conservation of nature, were permitted in the past to
expend their energy in the destruction of life, have been revealed by
science to be man’s most helpful agents in the promotion of comfort,
health, and longevity. Electricity was for ages only a thunderbolt,
an object of terror, and an agent of destruction, visiting the human
residence only to kill its owner and burn the structure.
To-day the same natural force is man’s most obedient and humble
servant, quietly visiting his home to furnish him heat and light,
annihilating time in the transactions of business, and transporting
him from place to place as on the lightning’s wings.
So the bacterium, once the terror of mankind as the invisible and
apparently unknowable cause of devastating pestilences, proves to be
the useful purveyor of the by-products of man’s digestion of waste
matter which is thereby converted into food for plants. It visits man
in the pursuit of its humble calling to obtain his contribution to the
sum total of plant food. It searches every tissue, every organ, every
recess, however obscure, but so stealthily that its coming and going
and its immediate presence are not known if absolute cleanliness of the
body exists. It is only when dying tissues or organs, or accumulations
of dead matter, are found that its presence becomes known. Even then
it would prove harmless and its presence would be unrecognized if its
excretions of plant food (toxins) were not necessarily absorbed and did
not enter the circulation, thus poisoning the body it is relieving of
dead matter.
[Sidenote: Man’s Defenses]
Briefly, what are man’s defenses against bacteria? Chiefly two, viz.,
first, killing it by depriving it of food; and, second, killing it
directly by what are known as germicides. The first method is effected
by cleanliness of the person. It may be affirmed that cleanliness,
without and within, absolutely protects every man, woman, and child
from the most common disease-producing bacteria.
It is not sufficient to keep the skin clean by daily baths, while the
mouth, nose, throat, and other internal surfaces and organs are covered
or filled with effete matter. We must be every whit clean if we would
escape the results of the scavenging processes of bacteria of some
variety or species.
That condition can be secured and maintained in an organism that itself
is constantly decaying in all of its tissues and organs only by strict
compliance with the natural laws governing the operations of the body
as an independent organism in which all of its forces tend to promote
its health and conservation. Every tissue and every organ has its
special means of renewal of its tissue by the removal of dead particles
through the outlets and the reception of fresh material through the
inlets of the body. Waste and supply are exactly balanced, as in the
most precise and delicate machine. If the outlets become clogged, so
that all the waste cannot escape at that proper time, dead matter, the
food of bacteria, begins to accumulate, and disease must result.
In the same manner, if the food is in excess of the demands, or of a
quality not suited to the needs of the tissue or organ, waste begins
to accumulate, bacteria swarm in the decomposing mass, and emit their
toxins, which, absorbed into the circulation, cause a variety of
physical disturbances according to the species of bacteria present,
and the particular tissues the toxins affect, as the nervous system,
stomach, heart, kidneys, etc.
That even the most feeble minded may be able to regulate their habits
so as to secure an adequate supply of food both in quality and
quantity, and the prompt removal of waste matter, so as to secure that
degree of cleanliness of internal organs essential to escape from
bacterial attacks, the mechanism of the body is endowed with instincts
that make it automatic in its action. Such are appetite and taste for
food and drinks; the desire for exercise, rest, and sleep; the impulse
of the organs in an active state, etc. It is only when these natural
monitors are interfered with that the mechanism begins to fail in its
elimination of waste, and bacteria find the conditions favorable for
their functional activity.
[Sidenote: Destroy the Bacteria]
The second defensive measure is the destruction of the bacteria by
means of agents that will destroy the microörganism before or after
its entrance into the body, but without injuring the healthy tissues.
There is a great variety of these agents of more or less power, and
they are used in the form of gases, liquids, and powders, according to
conditions existing in individual cases. In general, it may be advised
that, as bacteria are everywhere, germicides ought to be used far more
extensively than they are for the purposes of securing not only the
direct destruction of bacteria, but of removing or neutralizing dead
matter, the food of bacteria. So minute are bacteria, and so adherent
are they to material things, that mere bathing with water does not
remove them, medicate it as we may with fancy soaps. There should be
used in addition a more penetrating and destructive agent, which would
not only destroy all forms of bacteria, but at the same time secure
absolute cleanliness.
[Sidenote: The Value of Germicides]
It would be impossible even to summarize, except in a volume, the
vast number of so-called germicides that have been brought to the
attention of the public for use; but in the practice of surgery the
chief reliance is placed upon those agents which simply oxidize organic
matter, and thus destroy the germ without injuring living tissue, as
do all forms of caustic preparations. The saving of life by these new
measures far exceeds that effected by simply removing the material that
contains the germ, without destroying the germ itself.
It is impossible to estimate the resources of science in its efforts
to discover the ultimate conditions that govern the origin and spread
of all the pestilential diseases; but its revelations during the last
quarter of a century are a prophecy and a promise that the whole
brood of domestic contagious and infectious diseases will disappear
during the present century from the homes of English-speaking people;
largely because the lessons of cleanliness are being learned, not
only the lessons of cleanliness of the home, but also personal
cleanliness--a form of cleanliness that is more than washing with soap
and water,--that kind of cleanliness which kills germs, removes the
substances in which they live, and disinfects and makes aseptic and
healthy the surrounding tissues.
VIII
A CLOSING WORD
[Sidenote: Cleanliness Next to Godliness]
“Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness,” is an oft-quoted saying
of John Wesley. Bacon stated the maxim thus: “Cleanness of body was
ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.” The Hebrew
Fathers, from whom this sanitary principle was derived, resolved the
doctrines of religion into “Carefulness; Carefulness into Vigorousness;
Vigorousness into Guiltlessness; Guiltlessness into Abstemiousness;
Abstemiousness into Cleanliness; Cleanliness into Godliness.”
This religious creed was doubtless based on the Mosaic sanitary code,
and was the preventive measure against pestilences which the great
Jewish law-giver approved. How generally and how long the “Chosen
People” adopted and practised this method of protection against
epidemic diseases does not appear, but it is quite certain that in
later days it had been discarded.
[Sidenote: Invisible Agencies in Filth]
The Hebrew Fathers could have had no conception of the invisible
agencies in filth that made uncleanness such a powerful factor in
the propogation of epidemic pestilences and domestic contagious
and infectious diseases. It was reserved for the scientists of the
recent past to discover the exact nature of the infective germs of
communicable diseases, their origin, their development, their modes of
infection; in other words, their life history.
This discovery revealed the fact that filth in every form, whether
in the rubbish-heap, the toilet, the garbage, the dust of the floor,
or even in the folds of the hands and feet, the secretions of the
skin and glands, is a culture bed for germ-producing diseases. The
secret of the great power of cleanness as the true remedial measure
for the prevention of pestilences is now apparent and every citizen
must recognize that the obligation of applying that remedy rests with
himself.
The Great Awakening, in the middle of the last century, of the people
of England, and subsequently, of this country, to the intimate
relations of filth, in all forms in and around their dwellings, to
the prevalence and fatality of cholera, typhus fever, and other
communicable diseases, has restored cleanliness to its ancient imperial
position as chief of the virtues, and the most reliable private and
public means of conserving health.
[Sidenote: A Higher Civilization]
This awakening, due both in England and America to trivial incidents,
forms one of the most interesting chapters in human history. Already
the outcome has been an enormous reduction of the mortality of
English-speaking peoples, an immense increase in the length of
life, and an advance in the arts of living, which insures a higher
civilization by securing to every citizen a sound mind in a sound body.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of
inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.
Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.
In the original book, the first page of each chapter began with the
same decorative headpiece, and the first letter of the text was
decorative. None of those is indicated in the Plain Text version of
this eBook.
The Sideotes and the Table of Contents originally were printed in
italics. For clarity, the standard italics indicators (underscores)
have been removed from the sidenotes and Table of Contents in this
version of this eBook.
Text frequently uses both “Citizens Association” and “Citizens’
Association”. Both forms are retained here.
Page 35: “interne” was printed that way.
Page 113: “reaks” was printed that way.
Page 144: “unwieldly” was printed that way.