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In the United States circulars giving information as to the infectious
character of the disease are issued by the State Board of Health of the following
2.3 States:—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Deleware, Indiana, Iowa,
Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
In New York City 80,000 of these circulars are distributed among the
tenemented houses yearly, but in most cities they are sent only to those
families in which there is Phthisis. In New York the Sanitary Code requires
(1) that all cases of pulmonary tuberculosis shall be reported; (2) that an
inspector shall be sent to the house to instruct the family, and leave circulars;
while subsequent visits are also made to see that the precautions are carried
out; (3) that when a patient removes or dies an order is issued to the owner of
the house to cleanse or disinfect it. The goods are also sometimes disinfected
with steam.
In the same city, too, section 194 of the Sanitary Code of the Board of
Health makes it an offence to spit on the floors of public buildings, railroad
cars and of ferryboats, and upon stations, platforms or stairs of elevated railroads
; and enacts that the officers in charge or control of these shall keep
permanently posted a sufficient number of notices forbidding spitting, and also
that it shall be their duty to call the attention of all violators of the ordinance
to the notices. That this law is not a dead letter is proved by the fact that a
millionaire was fined for this offence, and on repeating it was sent to prison for
twenty.four hours.
In Canada and Australia there have been enactments against spitting, and
even in England the cities of Liverpool and Manchester, and the County of
Glamorgan are enabled to inflict penalties for this offence; and last
year London obtained similar powers. Such laws are very just
and most requisite, for as Professor Brouardel, the distinguished
representative of the French Government to the British Conference on
Tuberculosis, says: "The danger is in the sputum, which contains thousands
of consumptive germs. To expectorate on the street is a disgusting and
dangerous habit. When this habit has quite disappeared tuberculosis will disappear
rapidly.
The Conference felt so strongly on this subject that in its very first
Resolution it declared that " indiscriminate spitting should be suppressed."