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Show You and Your Health ' V. By MORRIS FISH B EI N Miter, Journal ef Hi Americas Medical Atsociatioa, sad ef Hyoeie, ike HmIHi Megsiiiie i In the matter of infection, man is his own worst enemy.. The two main sources of com- the lower animals. There are certain cer-tain diseases which occur only in human beings and which do not, in general, affect animals, although al-though there may be diseases similar sim-ilar to these which do affect animals, ani-mals, some of them not affecting human beings. For Instance, typhoid fever, syphilis, leprosy, malaria, yellow fever, scarlet fever, smallpox, mumps, measles, chickenpqx and infantile paralysis occur in men, but not in animals. True, it is possible to Inoculate an animal with these diseases, as has been done on occasion with monkeys, rabbits and dogs, but the diseases do not occur naturally in animals. One kind of disease transmitted from man to man is the respiratory respira-tory type the cough and the cold. Spread of such diseases is facilitated facili-tated by the conditions of modern living. Once it was recognized that disease dis-ease could be spread by water, soil, air and food, and control of these elements was considered all that was necessary to stop epidemics. Under modern conditions, we con-satisfactorily. con-satisfactorily. It is exceedingly difficult, however, to control human hu-man beings. As everyone now knows, many diseases are communicated to man by the lower animals sometimes because these diseases affect the lower animals exactly as they affect af-fect human beings; in other instances in-stances because the lower animal or insect is a carrier of the disease. dis-ease. Everyone knows that it is possible pos-sible to get hydrophobia after be- lng bitten by a mad dog. It has been widely publicised that rats carry plague, and that hog meat may be Infected with trichina, which then infects the person who eats the meat Anthrax is a disease of cattle. Malta or undulant fever was first transmitted by the goat. Milk may be infected with tuberculosis germs from cattle, and all sorts of worms which infest the lower animals may be transmitted to human beings. Among diseases which are known to affect lower animals and which, in recent years, have caused considerable distress among human beings, are tularemia, tulare-mia, which is spread by eating or dressing the meat from an infected infect-ed rabbit; psittacosis, which has been carried by parrots and canaries, ca-naries, as well as by lovebirds from the California coast; jaundice jaun-dice and rat bite fever, carried by rats. It is known also that ringworm may be transmitted from the lower animals and that a flea-infested dog may transmit some of his fleas to a human being. All this knowledge has aided in devising means of suppressing these conditions as they affect human beings, and in the investigation investi-gation of diseases of unknown origin or of conditions of which the method of transmission is not yet understood. |