One of the most important safeguards against the disease is the law that prevents spitting in public places. Not only the germs of consumption, but those of pneumonia, colds, catarrhs, diphtheria, and other diseases, can be spread by spitting. The habit is not only dangerous, but disgusting, unnecessary, and vulgar, so that most cities and many states have now passed laws prohibiting spitting in public places, under penalty of fine and imprisonment.
A REPORT-FORM FROM A HEALTH DEPARTMENT LABORATORY
In a suspected case, the physician sends a specimen of the sputum to the Laboratory to be tested, and receives a reply according to the result of the test. The form is filled in with the name of the patient and signed by the Director of the Laboratory.
The next best safeguard is plenty of fresh air and sunlight in every room of the house. These things are doubly helpful, both because they increase the vigor and resisting power of those who occupy the rooms and might catch the disease, and because direct sunlight, and even bright daylight, will rapidly kill the bacilli when it can get directly at them.
How great is the actual risk of infection in crowded, ill-ventilated houses is well shown by the reports of the tuberculosis dispensaries of New York and other large cities. Whenever a patient comes in with tuberculosis, they send a visiting nurse to his home, to show him how best to ventilate his rooms, and to bring in all the other members of the family to the dispensary for examination. No less than from one-fourth to one-half of the children in these families are found to be already infected with tuberculosis. The places where we look for our new cases of tuberculosis now are in the same rooms or houses with old ones. A careful consumptive is no source of danger; but alas, not more than one in three are of that character.
A SIGN THAT OUGHT NOT TO BE NECESSARY
But, being necessary, it should be strictly respected and obeyed.