HOW TO ESCAPE CONTAGION.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue I, 4 July 1896, Page 30

HOW TO ESCAPE CONTAGION.

The sad case of Dr. Stebbins, of the Boston City Hospital, who died from diphtheria contracted while pursuing his professional duties as admitting physician to the Hospital, may have brought to the minds of many the often repeated inquiry as to the manner in which immunity from contagion is secured by doctors, nurses, and others, whose business brings them so often in direct contact with infectious diseases.

The answer must be somewhat general, as well as a repetition of what has many times been given, but it is not the less worth heeding on that account. The two greatest safeguards against infection are a strong vitality and carefully selected hygienic surroundings. The perfected human organism, constantly and properly nourished, and with plenty of fresh air, is almost invincible against the invasion of disease. It is simply a question of survival of the superior. Disease, which is the weaker, is put to rout by good health, just as darkness vanishes at the approach of light. The strength of disease lies in taking its victim off his guard. In fact, its attacks are mostly made in ambush, as it were, insidiously and against the weakest spot in the armour of its victim.

Let a person, in no matter how good health, contract a slight cold or get over-fatigued, and immediately his very strength becomes a source of weakness. The stronger and more virulent types of disease find a vantage ground, and a fight begins which lasts the longer, and is the harder, as the opposing forces are the more equally matched in strength.

It is easy to see that even a physician, over-taxed with work and suffering somewhat from a consequent neglect of hygienic laws, may finally succumb to the disease amid which he lingers.