Consumption

a wasting away of the lungs, due to the attacks of bacteria. The term is exchangeable with tuberculosis. A more modern term is the white plague. Children of consumptive parents are not born with the germs of consumption in their lungs, but they may inherit weak lungs. If, for any one of a number of reasons, the lungs are weakened and the bacterium of consumption, or tuberculosis bacillus, is taken into the system, the disease is likely to become seated. Its progress is denoted by coughing, raising, and spitting, hectic fever, weakness, and emaciation. A damp climate is favorable to the growth of the disease. Want of cleanliness, bad ventilation, match making, coal mining, glass blowing, weariness, long hours, bending over at work; in short, any condition, occupation, or attitude that lacerates, cramps, or weakens the lungs renders one liable to attacks of the bacillus. While a perfectly healthy person is not subject to consumption, it is equally true that one in condition to take the disease cannot do so unless the bacteria from a consumptive person are taken into the system. Patients cannot be too careful, therefore, in the matter of expectoration. It is estimated that a patient may cast off 2,500,000 germs in a day. In case a consumptive spit on the sidewalk, or on the floor of a street car, depositing germs, it is likely that in a few hours they may have dried up and be floating about in the air, ready to be drawn into the lungs of some person in physical condition to become infected. The mischief is done. Tuberculosis is frequently acquired,--taken into the blood,--through the milk of infected cows. If conditions are favorable the germs soon settle in the lungs. About 120,000, or possibly 160,000 deaths occur annually in the United States from consumption. One authority hazards the statement that this disease is the cause of one out of every six deaths the world over. The period between the ages of fifteen and thirty seems to be the time of greatest danger. See Disease; Bacteria; Typhoid; Koch