INVALUABLE INFORMATION.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1207, 28 February 1880, Page 2

INVALUABLE INFORMATION.

Contagion consists physically of minute solid particles. The process of contagion consists in the passage of these from the bodies of the . sick into , the surrounding atmosphere, and in the inhalation of one or more of. them by those in the immediate neighborhood. If contagion were a gaseous or vapory emanation, it would be equally diffused through the sick room, and all who entered it would, if susceptible, suffer alike and inevitably. But such is not the case ; for many people are exposed for weeks and months without suffering. Of two persons situated in exactly the same circumstances, and exposed in exactly the same degree to a given contagion, one may suffer, and the ' Other escape. The explanation of this is that the little . particles of contagion are irregularly scattered about in the atmosphere, so that' the inhalation of one or more of them is purely a matter of chance, such chance bearing a direct relation to the number of particles which exist in a given cubic space. Suppose that a hundred germs are floating a,bout in a room containing two thousand cubic feet of air. There is one. germ for .every twenty cubic feet. : Naturally'the'germs will' be most numerous in the immediate neighborhood of their source, the person of the - sufferer ; but, excepting : this one place, they may be pretty equally distributed through the room; or they may be very unequally distributed. A draught across the bed may carry them now to one - side,' now to the other. The mass of them may be near the ceiling, or near ; the floor. In a given twenty cubic feet there may be a dozen germs, or there may be none ait all.' One who enters the room may inhale a germ before he has been in it ten minutes, or he may remain there for an hour without doiug so. Double the number of yerms and you double the danger. Diminish the size of the room by one lialf, and you do the same. Keep the windows shutj and you keep the germs in; open them and they pass out with the changing air. Hence the importance of free ventilation ; and hence one reason why fever should be treated, if possible, in large airy rooms. Not only is free Ventilation good for the sufferer, but it diminishes the risk to the attendants.