Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

FIGURE

117.-Imhoff tanks and sludge drying beds, Emscher District,

Germany

118.—Chemical precipitation plant at Worcester, Mass., inlet 119.-Chemical precipitation plant at Worcester, Mass., outlet 120.-Triple contact beds at Hampton, England

121.-Inclined screen, operated by water wheel, Birmingham,

PAGE

854

[ocr errors]

855

855

856

England..

857

122.-Trickling filters and final settling basin and roughing

filter at Hyde, England.

858

123.-Trickling filter at Birmingham, England

859

124.-Removing sludge from a septic tank at Manchester,

England

861

125.-Septic tank and chemical precipitation tanks at Rochdale, England

862

126.-Burying sludge from hydrolytic tank at Hampton, Eng

land

863

127.-Chemical precipitation tanks at Glasgow, Scotland. Lower

end

865

128.-Chemical precipitation tanks at Glasgow, Scotland. Upper

865

end 129.-Intermittent sand filtration bed at Brockton, Mass. 866 130.-Filter bed with sand ridged for winter operation at

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

131.-Discharge of sewage upon a filter bed at Brockton, Mass. 132.-Red oxid of lead and litharge, being mixed in the manufacture of storage batteries

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

133.-An effective dust-removing system in the boot and shoe industry.

917

134.-System of hoods and ventilators to carry off the fumes

from the furnaces in a foundry.

921

135.-A worker with lead oxid, showing respirator to protect

himself against the poisonous dust

925

136. The stone industry

929

137.-Workman exposed to zinc fumes in brass casting, causing
a condition known as "brass-founders' ague"
138.-Drum with nails which combs out the small pieces of

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

FIGURE

145.-Section through autoclave

146.-Bramwell-Deane steam sterilizer

147.-Cross section through steam disinfecting chamber

148.-Longitudinal section through steam disinfecting chamber
149.-Kinyoun-Francis steam disinfecting chamber.
150.-Automatic thermometer

PAGE

984

984

985

986

988

989

990

[ocr errors]

991

[ocr errors]

996

151.-Plan showing the method of installing the double-ended
steam chambers at a national quarantine station.
152.-Chart showing application of steam under pressure
153.-Flaring top tin bucket for generating formaldehyd by the

permanganate method.

154. The pot method of burning sulphur

155.-Large stack burner for sulphur, with 15 of the 18 pans

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

999

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE

SECTION I

PREVENTION OF THE COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

CHAPTER I

DISEASES HAVING SPECIFIC OR SPECIAL PROPHYLACTIC MEASURES

SMALLPOX AND VACCINATION

The prevention of smallpox depends primarily upon vaccination, secondarily upon isolation and disinfection. Vaccination was the first specific prophylactic measure given to man; it produces an active immunity to smallpox (variola). On account of its importance and great practical value this subject will be considered in some detail, for much of the antivaccination sentiment is due to ignorance or misconstruction of the facts.

Historical Note.-The credit of giving vaccination to the world is due to Jenner, who proved through carefully planned experiments that cowpox protects against smallpox. This fact had been familiar to the farmers and folk, of England as a vague tradition for a long time. A young girl who sought medical advice of Jenner, when a student at Sudbury, said, "I cannot take smallpox because I have had cowpox"; this remark made a strong impression upon the young medical student.

Benjamin Jesty, a Dorchestershire farmer, in 1774 successfully vaccinated his wife and two sons. Plett, in Holstein, in 1791 also successfully vaccinated three children. It was Jenner, however, who through logical and scientific methods proved that a person who has had the mild disease, cowpox, enjoys protection against the serious and often fatal disease, smallpox. Waterhouse and others soon repeated and corroborated Jenner's experiments and helped to establish the soundnessof his conclusions.

Jenner made his crucial experiments in 1796, when he transferred the vaccine matter from the hand of a dairy maid (Sarah Nelms) to the arm of a boy about 8 years old-name not given. Sarah Nelms

scratched her hand with a thorn and "was infected with the cowpox from her master's cows, in May, 1796.” Jenner transferred the vaccine virus from the eruption upon the hand of Sarah Nelms to the arm of the 8-year-old boy on May 14, 1796. A typical take followed. "In order to ascertain whether the boy, after feeling so slight an affection of the system from the cowpox virus, was secure from the contagion of the smallpox, he was inoculated the first of July following with variolous matter, immediately taken from a pustule. Several slight punctures and incisions were made on both arms, and the matter was carefully inserted, but no disease followed. The same appearances were observable on the arm as we commonly see when a patient has had variolous matter applied, after having either the cowpox or the smallpox. Several months afterward he was again inoculated with variolous matter, but no sensible effect was produced on the constitution."

In addition to such direct experimental proof, Jenner inoculated smallpox matter into ten persons who had at some previous time contracted cowpox.

[blocks in formation]

In justification of such human experimentation it should be remembered that at that time the inoculation of smallpox matter into healthy individuals was an acknowledged method of preventing that disease. Jenner himself was inoculated when a boy. The question of "inoculation" (with smallpox) as contrasted with "vaccination" (with cowpox) will be discussed presently.

With such proof as this Jenner put a popular belief upon a scientific basis. He demonstrated that cowpox is a local and trivial disease in man, that it may be readily transferred from man to man, and that it protects against smallpox. The chain of evidence was complete, but he first proved his thesis to his own satisfaction before he gave it to the world. He said himself: "I placed it on a rock where I knew it would be immovable before I invited the public to take a look at it." Jenner presented the results of his observations to the Royal Society, of which he was a Fellow, but the paper was refused. He then published

it in 1798 as a book, modestly entitled, "An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variola Vaccinæ, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cowpox." Every student of preventive medicine should read this brief "inquiry" in the original. It may be taken as a model of accurate observation and logical presentation, showing great self-restraint and moderation of an observant, imaginative, and judicial mind.

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, the first professor of Theory and Practice of Physic in the Harvard Medical School, early became convinced of the value of Jenner's demonstration and obtained some vaccine virus from abroad. On July 8, 1800, he vaccinated his son, Daniel Oliver Waterhouse, then five years old. This was the first person vaccinated in America, so far as existing records show. Thomas Jefferson helped materially to spread the new doctrine in this country, and, in 1806, in writing to Jenner, said: "Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome smallpox has existed and by you has been extirpated." This prophecy has not yet been fulfilled-though eminently possible.

VACCINATION

Vaccination may be defined as the transference of the virus from the skin eruption of an animal having vaccinia or cowpox into the skin of another animal. For over one hundred years vaccination (from vacca-a cow) was a specific term limited to the introduction of the virus of cowpox into the skin, in order to induce vaccinia and prevent variola. In recent years, however, the term has been used in a generic sense to include the introduction of many different substances in many different ways and for many different purposes. Thus we speak of attenuated or killed bacterial cultures as bacterial vaccines; and the subcutaneous inoculation of organic substances of diverse origin and nature is often spoken of as vaccination. We hear of typhoid vaccines, anthrax vaccines, staphylococcus vaccines, and we read in the literature of animals "vaccinated" with extracts of cancer and other organic substances. For distinction between a vaccine and a virus, see page 344.

VACCINE VIRUS

Vaccine virus is the specific principle in the matter obtained from the skin eruption of animals having a disease known as "vaccinia" or "cowpox." Vaccine virus is obtained from calves, man, the buffalo, sometimes the camel, and other animals.

Cowpox, or vaccinia, is an acute specific disease to which many animals are susceptible, namely, man, cattle, camels, rabbits, monkeys,

« ForrigeFortsett »