[CHAPTER XXXII]
HOW CONSUMPTION IS SPREAD AND HOW PREVENTED
How tuberculosis germs leave the body:
The sputum (spit) of the consumptive and the discharges from tubercular sores contain the germs that cause tuberculosis. Sometimes these germs are so numerous that thousands of them would be found clinging to the point of a needle dipped into the sputum or discharges from a patient. When the consumptive coughs, he sends into the air many of the germs that cause tuberculosis.
We cannot kill the germs while they are in the body of the consumptive; but we can kill them after they have left the body, by seeing that none of the sputum or discharge from tubercular wounds or sores is allowed to become dried and blown about as dust.
(1) In discharges from sores
When the discharge from a tubercular sore becomes dried and blows about with the dust, the germs are inhaled into the lungs of other people, or fall into other sores and cause them to become tubercular. Since this is one of the most frequent ways by which this dread disease is spread, you will say at once, "Why, every particle of matter from a tubercular sore ought to be burned, so that there would be no possibility of the germs being scattered." This of course ought to be done, but this is not enough.
People sometimes have consumption and are not aware that they have it. Others may have tubercular sores and not know them to be such. Any sore, whether it is tubercular or not, contains disease germs. They may not be the germs of tuberculosis, but even the least dangerous of them is the germ that causes pus (matter).
Since we are trying to get rid not only of the germs that cause tuberculosis, but also of the germs that cause all communicable diseases, it would be better to say, "All discharges from any sore should be burned immediately."