THE PLEURO-PNEUMONIA BILL.

The Act of Congress (April 29, 1884), for the establishment of a bureau of animal industry and the extirpation of contagious cattle diseases, provides that:

The commissioner of agriculture shall organize in his department a bureau of animal industry, with a chief who shall be a competent veterinary surgeon, and who shall investigate and report the condition of the domestic animals of the United States and the causes of contagious, infectious and communicable diseases among them. He shall also collect such other information on those subjects as may be valuable to the agricultural and commercial interests of the United States. For

the purposes of the bureau the Commissioner of Agriculture is authorized to employ a force not to exceed twenty persons at any one time. The salary of the chief of the bureau is fixed at $3,000, that of the clerk at $1,500. The commissioner is to appoint two competent agents who shall be practical stockraisers or men experienced in commercial transactions affecting live stock, who shall report the best manner of transporting and caring for animals, and the means to be adopted to suppress and extirpate pleuro-pneumonia and other dangerous, contagious or communicable diseases. The compensation of such agents is fixed at $10 per day.

The commissioner is to prepare as early as possible such rules and regulations as may be necessary to extirpate the diseases named, and certify such rules, etc., to the executive authority of each State and Territory, and invite the co-operation of such executive authority in the execution of the Act of Congress. When the rules, etc., shall have been accepted by such executive authority the commissioner may expend in the State so accepting so much money as may be necessary for the purpose of the investigations contemplated by the Act, and for such disinfection and quarantine measures as may be necessary to prevent the spread of the disease from one State or Territory into another.

In order to promote exportation of live stock, special investigation shall be made as to the existence of contagious dis

eases along the dividing line between the United States and foreign countries, and along the transportation lines from all parts of the United States to ports from which cattle are exported, and reports made to the Secretary of the Treasury, who shall co-operate with the State and municipal authorities, corporations and persons engaged in transportation of neat cattle by land or water, in establising regulations for the safe conveyance of the cattle and preventing the spread of the disease; and the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to take such steps as may be necessary, not inconsistent with the Act, to prevent the exportation of cattle affected with any contagious diseases, especially pleuro-pneumonia. Transportation companies are forbidden to transport cattle affected with any contagious or communicable diseases from one State or Territory to another, but the so-called splenetic or Texas fever is excepted from the category of communicable diseases, so far as regards the transportation of the cattle to market. Violations of the act by railroad companies or vessels is declared a misdemeanor on the part of the manager or captain, punishable by fine not to exceed $5,000, or imprisonment not to exceed one year, or by both. It is made the duty of United States District Attorneys to prosecute the cases.

The sum appropriated for the purposes of the act is $150,000, (instead of $250,000 as appropriated by the House of Representatives.)

The Commissioner of Agriculture is required to report annually to Congress a full account of the operations of the bureau, a list of all persons employed, their compensation, etc.

DOCTORS' AND LAWYERS' FEES.-The Government has paid for one unsuccessful trial of the "Star route thieves" $144,146. 92; of this Mr Bliss, of New York, received for his portion of the unsuccessful work $57,732.15, an average of $150 a day for fees, and $10 a day for expenses. And yet the small charge of Mr. Garfield's doctors was scaled far below $100 a day, including expenses, provided they would sign a receipt in full. The people and the press applauded. Even the medical press, in part, and medical men, thought it all right thus to defraud and degrade the medical profession. A record of shame.-Gaillard's Journal.

CONTAGIOUS AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES*.

By JOHN AVERY, M.D., of Greenville, President of Michigan State Board of Health.

Dr. Avery premised his position by the statement that all contagious diseases are infectious, and that all infectious diseases are contagious. These terms are now interchangeable, and are used by medical writers to denote a class of diseases having their origin in a specific poison taken into the system and containing in itself the germs of self-propagation. Thus the germs or virus of small-pox, etc. And so the poison of small-pox may be communicated directly from a person suffering from that disease to a well one, and thus be contagious; or it may be carried in the clothing of a protected person to an unprotected one, who will have small-pox, and so be infectious. This is true of other diseases of this class, and especially so of diphtheria and scarlet fever, two diseases Michigan people are most interested in preventing. We may say, then, that all contagious and infectious diseases are communicable, and that all communicable diseases are preventable.

One-third of all sickness and deaths in this country result from preventable causes, it is estimated. With a better knowledge of hygienic laws, many diseases could be prevented, and sickness and suffering greatly lessened and the average of life increased. Diphtheria, scarlet fever and small-pox are the most threatening of communicable diseases.

Typhoid fever might be added to the list, and recent investigations indicate that consumption will soon be added. If a person is taken down with small-pox, the knowledge that the case had its origin in a previous one leads the people at once to take measures to protect themselves against its further spread. This results from the positive knowledge that the disease is communicated from one to another, and that it can be limited and finally stamped out. If the same positive knowledge could be imparted to all, that diphtheria and scarlet fever are far more dangerous to life, just as communicable and just as preventable as small-pox, our mortality reports would not

* Abstract of paper read before Sanitary Convention at Ionia, Mich., Dec. 13, 1883.

show fifty deaths in Michigan from these two diseases to one from small-pox. It is now universally admitted that diphtheria is of a contagious character. Medical professors, scientists, and intelligent observers agree that it is communicable. My own belief is that each communicable disease has its own specific germ or seed, which ripens during the progress of the disease, and which, taken into a system properly prepared to receive it, will grow and multiply, and in due season bring forth fruit of its kind, and of no other. These germs will reproduce themselves; will live for an indefinite period, unless destroyed by heat or other active agent; and will, if allowed to spread, invariably produce the same disease under favorable circumstances, as the one from which they originated. These germs are minute particles of organic matter, probably living organisms, invisible to the unaided eye, very tenacious of life, will cling to the walls of the room of the sick, and to books, furniture, etc. They may be carried in the hair, clothing, etc., of attendants and visitors, and may be by the physician attending. They may be carried into and poison the water supply; may be carried into the dairy or milk closet, and taken into the system with the cream in our coffee, or fed to children in their bread and milk.

How may they be destroyed and their distribution prevent

The moment a case of diphtheria is recognized (as an illustration) the patient should be put to bed in the airiest, sunniest room; an abundance of air provided; let in the sunlight, and keep the temperature as near 65 to 70 as possible. The doctor then described the course of treatment that should be followed in handling the disease. The health officers should have no more hesitation in providing a place for the proper isolation and treatment of a case of diphtheria, or any other communicable disease, than they would have for the treatment of a case of small-pox, where it is not possible to follow the directions and secure the conditions described. In a case of the latter disease the community will compel the observance of these or similar precautions. Why not in case of diphtheria, scarlet fever and other communicable diseases where danger to health and life are much greater than in small-pox? As ordinarily used, disinfectants lull into false security, simply disguising one bad smell by substituting another. To attempt to

purify the air of a sick room, made foul by the exhalations of the breath, by the use of carbolic acid, etc., is simply to add to the danger instead of lessening it. Pure air in abundance, circulating freely, is the best disinfectant. Nothing else can take its place, and it costs nothing, except the effort to open the window. Fresh air is as necessary at night as in day, and is as pure. Additional covering may be required, but no less air. The precautions necessary to restrict diphtheria are applicable to all other communicable diseases. In typhoid fever the danger from direct contagion is probably much less than in most other infectious diseases, and entire isolation is perhaps not so necessary as in small-pox, diphtheria and scarlet fever; but the same care in the disposal of all excreta must positively be enforced. They contain the germs of the disease, and the excreta from a single typhoid fever patient, if carelessly disposed of, may poison the water supply of a hundred well persons, and give them the disease. While it is true that all communicable diseases have each its origin in a specific cause, it is also true that location and unsanitary surroundings have much to do in multiplying and intensifying that cause. Damp, unventilated basements, cesspools, stagnant water near houses, bad air in the rooms, seem to form a nest in which the germs of these diseases grow and multiply and increase in intensity, and when they seize upon their victim in such a locality, with a system already poisoned by the surroundings, the conflict is generally short; and the danger of infection from such a case is much increased. Pure air, pure water, dry and cleanly surroundings are safeguards that can no more be neglected in these than in other forms of disease. Practically, perhaps, all communicable diseases are only controllable; possibly preventable. We can, if we will, keep them within bounds, and, as the nature of their poison and its different modes of communication become better understood, may be able in time to altogether suppress them. Thanks to the great advance in medical and sanitary science, we know something of their origin, more of their nature and habits, and instead of accepting and patiently submitting to them as providence, to be borne, we look upon them as enemies to the peace and happiness of society, and demand their extermination.