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6
A.D. 1689. An English Physician, Morton, in his " Phthisisologia"
recognised that tubercles were the pathological evidence of the disease of the
lungs, which is always characterized at some period of its evolution by their
presence.
A.D. 1750. The magistrates at Nancy caused the effects of a woman who
had died from phthisis to be burned in the market place.
A.D. 1754. Morgagni* (Giovanni Battista), an Italian anatomist, taught,
that phthisis was infectious, and through his teaching the Sanitary Magistrates
of Florence requested the Medical College of that city to define the articles
that would be most likely to be infected by a phthisical patient, and the means
whereby they could be purified.
Antonio Cocchi, in evidence that reads as if it were only given yesterday,
pointed out to them :—
(1) The curative effect of large and well cleaned rooms, exposed
to the sun.
(2) The necessity of open windows.
(3) The ill effects of stuffy rooms with closed doors and
windows.
(4) The necessity for the phthisical to spit into glass or porcelain
vessels, which should be cleaned frequently.
(5) The necessity that floors and walls should be cleansed and
whitened in all small rooms, but that it is sufficient to whitewash up to
the height of a man in large rooms.
A.D. 1757 The Sanitary Magistrates of Florence issued an edict on the
subject of phthisis.
A.D. 1760. A special hospital was erected at Olivuzza for the isolation
of patients, suffering from phthisis, who had been under treatment in other
hospitals, so that they might not infect the sick in the other beds.
A.D. 1782. An edict was issued at Naples ordering :
During illness.
(a) The isolation of consumptives.
(b) The disinfection of their rooms, furniture, books, etc.
* It was he who said " Phthisicorum cadavera fugi adolescens, fugio etiamsenex." " As a young
man Igshunned the dead bodies of the phthisical, as an old man I still shun them."