The most remarkable part of the book is the speculative or explanatory part, consisting of an exceedingly ingenious argument, based upon the analogy of admitted facts, to prove that the cause of contagious fevers is some invisible noxious matter in the air. Of the intimate nature of this matter he says: Some consider it to be a sulphurous exhalation from the earth; but this cannot be, for, if so, acrid and sulphurous fumes would increase it, instead of checking or annihilating it. Another theory is that it is due to the products of putrefaction; but how can dead putrid matter ever get such activity as to work such astonishing results? It must therefore be something endowed with a more powerful activity than anything belonging to the mineral kingdom or simply putrefying matter, and must, therefore, be something “actually living.” He further concludes that these living organisms must have an existence independent of the body in which they are found. For this view, surprising and novel enough at first, loses some of its singularity, if we search for resemblances elsewhere. Now, just as it was well known that itch is due to the presence of acari, insects visible by the aid of the microscope, so close attention to these matters in numberless cases during many years, has proved beyond a doubt that the gaol distemper, putrid fever, plague, and infectious epidemics generally, proceed not from matter putrid in itself, but from invisible insects also, that, floating in the air at times, are lodged in the skin in immense quantities; feeding here in clusters, they produce pimples, pustules, etc.; for instance, the eruption of small-pox. He overlooks, or fails to mention, the possibility of their entering by the air passages or digestive system. “Medicines,” he says, “which poison insects without injuring the constitution have always proved specific.” These insects, which constitute contagion, are communicated by air, the raiment, as by contact. He admits that vegetables as well as animals suffer from the ravages of these animalcules. He believed that they originated from eggs and not de novo. He advises fumigations with sulphur and frankincense to destroy contagion in rooms, and shows that many diseases in lower animals are cured or prevented by the use of certain agents known to kill insects.
In summing up his theory, he says that, generally speaking, there are two sources of these animalcules. First, from subterranean sources, which operate in all sorts of weather and are accompanied by electrical phenomena. Second, from the surface of the earth, swamps, filthy lakes, stagnant ponds, etc. The eggs left on the soil develop in summer, and “the multitudes effluviate into air.”
The essay is interesting to us because of the very clear foreshowing of a theory that we are apt to regard as the creation of recent years. It is a good example of the power of attentive observation and inductive reasoning, which is so seldom met with even in scientific medical men of the present day.
ALBUMINURIA A FREQUENT RESULT OF SEWAGE POISONING.
Dr. George Johnson, in Br. Med. Jour. for March 3d, gives the histories of four cases of albuminuria which he believes were the result of breathing sewer air. In addition to other diseases, the result of drain poison, the author has met with several cases of albuminuria which he believes can and does under continued exposure to the sewer poison, result in incurable disorganization of the kidneys. He thinks that, in the absence of other probable exciting causes of albuminuria, the possibility of sewer poisoning should be constantly borne in mind. It is needless to dilate upon the importance of discovering the exciting cause of a disease so serious in its consequences as nephritis. In each of the four cases cited, albuminuria and casts were found in the urine, and blood in two of them. In each case defective drainage was proven, and in two of the four an immediate improvement occurred on removing this cause. One proved fatal from suppression of the urine.
The author suggests as an interesting point, that amongst the various diseases resulting from drain poison, diphtheria is in a very large proportion of cases associated with albuminuria.
It would be interesting to know whether a large proportion of cases of diphtheria occurring in houses having defective plumbing suffer with albuminuria, than in houses where no such defect exists. If these observations are confirmed, we may learn from them something of the cause of the great fatality of scarlet fever and diphtheria in houses which contain defective drains.
SEWER-AIR POISONING.
The question of sewer-air poisoning has received no inconsiderable attention at the hands of sanitarians within the past few years, some claiming that it is a carrier of many of the contagious diseases, including malarial affections, while others have denied its harmful action in these respects.
The last class, in substantiation of their claim, point to the assumed fact that plumbers and those who work in sewers are not, as a rule, especially subject to the diseases generally attributed to sewer air. That plumbers are not exempt from troubles of this kind is attested by numerous examples. According to Science, an inquest was recently held in Liverpool, Eng., on the body of a plumber’s apprentice who had been engaged in repairing pipes which connected with the sewer. Quantities of gas came through these pipes, and at the time the young man complained of pain and sickness, and died forty hours afterward. The jury rendered a verdict of poisoning by sewer air.