Inasmuch as the patient must be adequately nourished, his cure depends upon the condition of the stomach. It is known that the germ works more actively in a patient who is losing weight. When the germ is very active, its poisons, circulating in the blood, cause fever and fever results in tissue waste. We must therefore bend every effort toward overcoming this tendency. If we can get the patient to take sufficient food and if he digests it thoroughly, the weight will increase, the fever will subside, and the tissue waste will stop. Patients must be extremely careful, therefore, what they put into their stomachs. Only simple, tasty, highly nutritious food should be taken, and digestive energy should not be wasted on less nutritious materials. For this reason incalculable harm has been done by indiscriminate medicine-taking. Medicines exert a bad influence on the stomach and those patients who take them lose their appetites. Drugs should never be taken except for a definite purpose and only on the advice of a physician. These patients should particularly be guarded against the use of advertised patent medicines. They are always bad, and never under any circumstances are they of any advantage, as is clearly shown in the chapter on "Patent Medicines." Thousands of persons die of consumption every year who would have lived had they not taken such remedies.
The following article is sent out by the New York Department of Health as a Circular of Instruction regarding Tuberculosis.
INFORMATION FOR CONSUMPTIVES AND THOSE LIVING WITH THEM
Consumption Is Chiefly Caused by the Filthy Habit of Spitting.—Consumption is a disease of the lungs, which is taken from others, and is not simply caused by colds, although a cold may make it easier to take the disease. It is caused by very minute germs, which usually enter the body with the air breathed. The matter which consumptives cough or spit up contains these germs in great numbers—frequently millions are discharged in a single day. This matter, spit upon the floor, wall or elsewhere, dries and is apt to become powdered and float in the air as dust. The dust contains the germs, and thus they enter the body with the air breathed. This dust is especially likely to be dangerous within doors. The breath of a consumptive, except when he is coughing or sneezing, does not contain the germs and will not produce the disease. A well person catches the disease from a consumptive only by in some way taking in the matter coughed up by the consumptive.
Consumption can often be cured if its nature be recognized early and if proper means be taken for its treatment. In a majority of cases it is not a fatal disease.
It is not dangerous to live with a consumptive, if the matter coughed up by him be promptly destroyed. This matter should not be spit upon the floor, carpet, stove, wall, or sidewalk, but always, if possible, in a cup kept for that purpose. The cup should contain water so that the matter will not dry, or better, carbolic acid in five per cent. watery solution (six teaspoonfuls in a pint of water). This solution kills the germs. The cup should be emptied into the water closet at least twice a day, and carefully washed with boiling water.
Great care should be taken by consumptives to prevent their hands, face, and clothing from becoming soiled with the matter coughed up. If they do become thus soiled, they should be at once washed with soap and hot water. Men with consumption should wear no beards at all, or only closely cut mustaches. When consumptives are away from home, the matter coughed up should be received in a pocket flask made for this purpose. If cloths must be used, they should be immediately burned on returning home. If handkerchiefs be used (worthless cloths, which can be at once burned, are far better), they should be boiled at least half an hour in water by themselves before being washed. When coughing or sneezing small particles of spittle containing germs are expelled, so that consumptives should always hold a handkerchief or cloth before the mouth during these acts; otherwise the use of cloths and handkerchiefs to receive the matter coughed up should be avoided as much as possible, because it readily dries on these and becomes separated and scattered into the air. Hence, when possible, the matter should be received into cups or flasks. Paper cups are better than ordinary cups, as the former with their contents may be burned after being used. A pocket flask of glass, metal, or pasteboard is also a most convenient receptacle to spit in when away from home. Cheap and convenient forms of flasks and cups may be purchased at many drug stores. Patients too weak to use a cup should use moist rags, which should at once be burned. If cloths are used they should not be carried loose in the pocket, but in a waterproof receptacle (tobacco pouch), which should be frequently boiled. A consumptive should never swallow his expectoration.
A consumptive should have his own bed, and, if possible, his own room. The room should always have an abundance of fresh air—the window should be open day and night. The patient's soiled wash-cloths and bed linen should be handled as little as possible when dry, but should be placed in water until ready for washing.
Rooms should be cleaned daily, but in order to prevent the raising of dust, all floors must be well sprinkled before sweeping, and all dusting, etc., done with damp cloths.
If the matter coughed up be rendered harmless, a consumptive may frequently not only do his usual work without giving the disease to others, but may also thus improve his own condition and increase his chances of getting well.