HUMAN MICROBE CARRIERS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 151, 17 June 1908, Page 4

HUMAN MICROBE CARRIERS

It is now about ton years since il, was discovered that the microbe of diphtlieria could be carried about by the patient, who lias recovered from that malady. Since tlioii it lias been found that the health of the community may lie threatened ill tlie same way by those who have suffered from influenza, spinal meningitis, plague, cholera, and other horrors. And all the time the microliecarrier may he <pute ignorant of the I strange fact tlmt he or she is disseinin- | uting disease, while, immune to tlie ac- | tion of the pathogenic germs that may ] lie working such niisehief. The consumptive patient, of course, is himself suffering from his complaint. l>ut the cook who went from place to place, and fter whose successive advents each louschold was in turn afflicted with yplioid. was utterly unconscious of the [read penalty she was inflicting on hose who engaged her services. And die never again suffered from typhoid. At a recent scientific meeting in. \nieriea a case *as mentioned in which forty-two years were said to have •lapsed since tlie typhoid attack, and the victim was still' distributing microbes in serene unconsciousness ol the fact. 'Plague bacilli have been found in (lie sputum seventy-six days after tlie patient has been, pronounced cured, and the vitality of inllcnw microb.'s spread broadcast, in a similar manner lias been proved to extend to as much as twelve months. If was once supposed that this remarkable persistency of pathogenic germs was due to the fact that they are really outside ihe body, residing on mucous membranes, 'lliey would thus escape tlie ordinary forces of destruction that operate in tlie blood and the tissues. According to Professor Simon Hexner. it is not easy to distinguish between capacity of growth in and oil the surface of tlie body. Certain tissues may develop immunity to pathogenic bacteria, "which usually injure them. Indeed, it is also curious to note that certain bacteria may adapt themselves to a noxious environment, and survive under conditions that will nenerally prove fatal to them. The attention of experts is being drawn more and more to the fact that recovery from disease does not necessarily imply complete destruction of the bacteria. And the diliicully of the investigations on which experts are engaged is not diminished bv what- Flexner terms the high di'irrM of capacity for adaptive change* mAlie part of parasite and host alike.— Westminster Gazette.