Particular attention should be directed to the possibilities of the spread of contagion among certain classes of workmen who handle materials which may contain disease-germs ; such as hat-makers, paper-makers, and rag sorters. See ANTHRAX. The inhalation of dust (whether from metal, coal, stone, flour, or tobacco, etc.) produces a permanent irritation of the lungs and air-passages, which predisposes to the development of pneumonia, tuberculosis, influenza, and other pulmonary diseases, because the resistance of the lung-tissue becomes lowered.
In addition to the ordinary precautions, energetic disinfection of the stools and of the dirty linen is usually sufficient to prevent the spread of typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. During the prevalence of the infections disease the water used for drinking and washing should he thoroughly boiled, as should also the milk. As it is well known that small wounds of the skin and of the mucous membranes permit tiv entrance of infectious agents (causing erysipelas, septtemia, etc.), such wounds should be treated with the greatest care. Of untold value is the protective vaccination against smallpox, the omission of which must be looked upon as a crime. The early injection of Behring's serum in diphtheria, and the timely treatment of rabies are also important.
A person suffering from a contagious venereal disease should not he led, by a sense of false shame, to hide its existence, or to seek the aid of a charlatan in its treatment. In this instance nothing but the timely services of a physician is able to overcome an evil which not only endangers the life of the individual, but which may involve also the entire family. As a rule, contagious diseases are most effectively combated by the destruction of their specific germs, by personal cleanliness, by sanitary dwellings, and also by increasing and maintaining the natural resistance of the body by appro priate measures already treated under HARDENING. Two other factors
which aid a person in warding off disease are fearlessness and an energetic will—two qualities which, in addition to other precautions, assist the physician in protecting his own person against infection.
The best way to treat infectious diseases is to prevent them. It is not necessary for children to have them at all. Social conditions may make it difficult for parents to prevent the many possible accidental contaminations, but if all parents were properly informed, and conscientious in their duties to others, much avoidable sickness would be prevented. The father or mother who permits a child recovering from an infectious disease to go to school before the period of possible contagiousness is past, is a true criminal, either through ignorance or intent. What does a week's loss in school amount to in comparison with the hundreds of sick and dying children that may come to such condition from one sick child who returns to school while convalescing ? Parents should be more careful ; and to curb the careless ones they should support the efforts of enlightened local authorities, who demand that medical school-inspectors examine ailing children for possible infectious diseases. Every community, no matter how small, should have its health officer. He is a much more important official than a road surveyor. The former can save the lives of those who grow up to he men and women ; the latter saves the waggons and the horses a little, and gains time in hauling. \\Inch is the more important ? But should an infectious disease be caught, it should be carefully treated. Not one is to be treated carelessly, no matter how mild the patient's symptoms may be.