Science from an Easy Chair by Sir E. Ray Lankester

Author:Sir E. Ray Lankester [Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science, Natural history
Published: 2018-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

The version is Sir Theodore Martin’s. Mephistopheles might be a bacteriologist explaining the difficulty of dealing with disease germs. In any case, it is the Mephistophelian spirit of annihilation, and flame as its instrument, which man brings to his service in the contest with cholera germs.

The great carriers of cholera are human beings themselves travelling in caravans, pilgrimages, shiploads. For the fact has now been established that a man may harbour inside him the cholera-bacillus without its multiplying largely or rendering him seriously ill. Once it is brought by such an individual into a favourable locality, it is spread by water contaminated by him, and yet used for drink and domestic purposes; and also it is spread by his touching things in which the bacillus can grow, such as cooked food, fruits, etc., swallowed subsequently by unsuspecting purchasers or employers. You have, in order to avoid cholera (and similar infections), not only to have very clean fingers yourself, but to see to it that your servants’ fingers are clean also, or else that anything they touch is afterwards heated for a few minutes to near boiling-point before you let it enter your mouth. A little history illustrative of the need of this precaution is on record. In Egypt during a recent outbreak of cholera there was a very wealthy lady who lived alone in an isolated palace under the charge of a physician. She had a delicate appetite; her food was most carefully prepared. She drank and used only boiled sterilised water; no one was allowed to approach her except her servants, who never left the palace grounds, and were in good health. She sickened of cholera and died. It was a puzzle as to how she had acquired the infection. Her physician at last discovered that she daily partook of cold chicken-broth, prepared carefully by her cook. The cook, though practically well, was found to be infected with the cholera-bacillus, which had probably lodged in his intestine some weeks previously at the commencement of the outbreak of the disease in Egypt. Though living in him the cholera-bacilli had not found a favourable field of growth. This man in handling the cold broth, the cloth used to rub the spoon with which it was stirred, or the basin itself, had, it was found by making the actual experiment, been able to transfer the minute bacillus to the cold broth, a most favourable and nourishing medium for its growth, and so his isolated carefully guarded employer received an abundant crop of the bacilli and developed a fatal attack of cholera. Had the lady taken the broth hot, there would have been no living cholera-bacillus in it, and if she had thus guarded herself in regard to all food, by the use of heat and great cleanliness, she would have escaped infection.

The most interesting development of knowledge and speculation with regard to the microbes which infest the human intestine and other regions of the human body is (as I mentioned above) connected

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.