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4. Such persons should use paper handkerchiefs, into which they can spit,
the handkerchiefs being burned before they become dry.
5. Indoors, a spittoon containing a little water should be used. Out of
doors, a small spit bottle. Both spittoon and bottle should be cleansed with
boiling water.
6. On no account should the filthy practice of spitting in streets, public
conveyances or on floors be allowed either for healthy or consumptive persons.
7. Rooms inhabited by consumptive persons should be cleansed with damp
dusters and sprinkled with water or damp tea leaves before sweeping.
8. Sunlight and fresh air are the best disinfectants.
W. COLLINGRIDGE,
Medical Officer of Health for the City
of London.
Fourteen cases have been notified, and whenever consent could be obtained,
the rooms, bedding, &c., of the patient were disinfected by your Staff.
Unfortunately, in several instances our good offices were declined, but such
cases will become rarer as the public become educated to the advantages
attending proper disinfection.
But probably to the Corporation, with its large Markets, the most important
point discussed was that of the
Relation between Human and Bovine Tuberculosis,
involving, as it does, the question of the risk of infection from tuberculous
meat and milk.
Professor Koch, in his paper, stated that he had come to the conclusion, as
the result of experiments, that while animal tuberculosis was easily communicable
from beast to beast, human tuberculosis was not capable of
being so conveyed, and that, further, from indirect evidence, he was unable to
accept the possibility of infection of man from animals. The evidence
given in support of this latter position at present appears, to most scientists,
as inconclusive and unsatisfactory.
His argument is that milk and butter often contain large numbers of
bacilli, and that if these were capable of conveying the disease (as is generally
believed) the majority of cases in children would take the form of primary
tuberculosis of the intestine, and that, as a matter of fact, this is comparatively
rare (Koch).
Further, as cattle (according to the Professor) cannot be infected by human
tubercle, it is possible to determine whether bacilli found in a deceased
tuberculous person are human or bovine simply by injecting them into cattle.