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14
The disease is caused by germs or microbes called "tubercle
bacilli;" these bacilli are so small that they can only be seen with the
most powerful microscopes, and many thousands may be crowded in a
few drops of expectoration from the lungs of those suffering from
Consumption.
Whatever lowers the strength or the vitality predisposes towards the
disease.
Persons who live in damp, dirty, ill-ventilated, over-crowded and
badly lighted houses. Intemperance, repeated colds, unwholesome and
insufficient food, attacks of measles, whooping cough and typhoid fever.
From a patient suffering from Consumption the germs are given
off in the expectoration or phlegm.
Where this expectoration or spit lodges, it dries, and afterwards
gets lifted up as dust into the air, the germ thereby reaches the lungs of
others.
For the above reason Consumptive patients should never expectorate
on the floors of a house, public conveyance, or into a handkerchief, but
either into pieces of rag or paper, which should be at once burned, or
into a spittoon or small portable spit bottle containing a little water.
The spittoon or bottle should be carefully emptied down the w.c.
every morning and evening, then scalded and re-charged with fresh
water.
A Consumptive patient should, if possible, occupy a separate room,
which should be supplied with plenty of fresh air and open to sunlight,
both of which tend to destroy the germs.
No Consumptive patient should give suck.
No Consumptive patient should kiss the lips of another person.
All knives, forks, spoons, and cups used by Consumptive patients
should be boiled for at least two minutes.