has been no occasion to forestall anything like a doubt as to the solidity of the foundation on which contagion rests. The nearest approach that they have made to the subject is contained in somewhat obscure and fragmentary views touching the effect of seasonal conditions on the extension of measles at epidemical periods. This, however, was dangerous ground, and so the suggestions just lightly thrown out that the state of the weather may have an effect—not on the contagion-but on the population, were not followed out to their legitimate conclusions. the matter stands I take upon me to say that there is no adequate explanation, consistent with the theory of contagion, to be had either of the occurrence, or of the limitation of sporadic measles.

And as

With regard to these small concurrent outbreaks in two, three, or four or more dwellings in a neighbourhood, it is obvious that contiguous houses may be drenched through the one damaged roof, or by the leakage or stoppage of a pipe common to them; that houses built at the same period may fall into decay together; and that houses may be partly unroofed or otherwise similarly damaged by the same storm. Many other purely local conditions may cause the walls of a few houses in a village, or in the same quarter of an old or of a new town, to take in water from above or suck it up from below; but certain conditions affecting old thatched cottages may specially be drawn attention to. In some villages a few of the labourers' cottages or huts were probably thatched in the same year, whenever it was, by the same thatchers, and the thatch of each has rotted equally and has at last let in the rain. This would account for sporadic occurrences of measles in each cottage about the same time; and in such habitations the thatch may not only admit the rain, but the straw of which it is made may become mildewed on its inner surface, and may thus add to the contamination of the air in the interior of the dwelling caused by the straw fungi grown on the bedding.

By the "straw mildew theory," therefore, a new light is thrown on these sporadic occurrences of measles as well as on many others. The breaking out of measles on board ship after being two or three months at sea, its attacking prisoners

long in durance, its common occurrence during or immediately after acute illnesses of all kinds, its supervening on injuries entailing confinement to bed, and all the incidences of the disease in which connection with a measles patient cannot be traced, even with the aid of the improbable conjectures and unwarrantable assumptions to be found in the text-books, may be resolved perfectly and rationally by the view of de novo occurrence from the mildewing of straw in the paillasse. Dr. Chevers, a staunch contagionist, had to admit that "measles has not unfrequently broken out among the children in troop and passenger ships, on the voyage round the Cape, so long after leaving land as somewhat to countenance Dr. Salisbury's view that the fungi of wheat-straw are the source of measles.1 "

Of course the etiologist who wields an unknown, diffusible contagium, that he can send anywhere at will, has no great difficulty in getting it on board ship, or in placing it in any required position. His real difficulty begins, as we have seen, though he has not concerned himself with it, when the contagion which he has transported to a given spot has fulfilled its mission. When it has done the specific work it was sent to do, writers leave it, regardless of what becomes of it or how its after career affects their own views. Thus it may be shown to the satisfaction of the schools that the measles contagium may easily be introduced into a vessel-indeed nothing is simpler than for an entity which will adhere to anything to impinge on something taken on board-and it is even supposable that a contagium which, as we are told, will infect in a moment, may from some cause remain for two or three months on board a ship without finding entrance into any of the passengers or crew. But when at last infection is established in the vessel, the contagionist who considers that in having embarked the contagium successfully the outbreak is explained and no more need be said, would find, if he followed them up, that the results of sending this contagium to sea are more pronouncedly incompatible with his own views of its nature than the results of a far larger amount of contagium remaining on land.

1 Medical Times and Gazette, July 19, 1879.

It has frequently happened that many of the children in a ship, especially those of first-class passengers, have escaped the measles after they have broken out. These exemptions will be found altogether impossible to explain on contagionist principles. No doubt some parents have kept their children away from the infected children as much as possible, but others have acted on the fatuous notion that children must have the measles once in their lives, and, thinking that they might just as well have them at sea, have exposed them to infection, or have not been at any trouble to save them from the disease. But in any case, precautions or no precautions, with a fresh, volatile, diffusible contagion of the highest infective power, a contagion that strikes instantaneously, constantly given off in large quantity down below, how is it possible that a child in any part of the ship shall not sooner or later inhale a particle? These exemptions, however, would appear to have been unknown to writers on measles. If they are ever called upon to accommodate them with their views, they will find that their assumption of immunity will not admit of stretching, so as decently to cover every instance of exemption on board ship.

If we regard these outbreaks on shipboard and in other isolated positions, together with the numberless sporadic cases that occur in towns and villages, among the healthy and the sick or disabled, as occurrences de novo through infection from the "straw fungi," we have at once the clue to every instance of infection and of exemption. We have but to look to the conditions in regard to the degree of air-contamination. In the interior of a vessel, for instance, the air may be contaminated with the straw fungi more or less throughout; but it is only in those berths in which the sleepers inhale such a number of spores for such a number of nights, or for such a length of time, as to constitute a full dose of the poison for the child, the youth, or the adult who shall happen to occupy the berth, that infection takes place. By this view it may easily be seen how children sleeping on flock or hair mattresses, or even on straw paillasses in first-class roomy cabins, may not be subjected to an atmosphere contaminated to the extent required

to cause their infection, at a time when several children and even adults are down with the measles in the steerage. (In long voyages in sailing vessels another source of "straw fungi" contamination may exist outside the sleeping berths, and may assist in bringing the atmosphere up to the standard of efficient contamination; and in some parts of the vessels more than in others. The straw used in crates and packages for certain cargoes may, in low latitudes especially, become damp or wet, and add largely to the spores, &c., given off from the straw bedding.)

It is hardly necessary to observe how perfectly the view of occurrences de novo from the mildewing of paillasses fits in with the phenomena of sporadic measles supervening on fevers and other acute disorders, of appearing in cases of fracture, or in other cases where people are confined to bed for two or three weeks. All the exanthems may be and frequently are complicated, either during or even before convalescence, with an attack of measles. Adults laid up with these or other diseases, or with injuries, are perplexingly affected with measles at times when the disease has not been heard of in the neighbourhood perhaps for years. It is incomprehensible that these cases are all supposed to be reconciled with the accepted views of the measles contagium, but etiologists appear to be satisfied that they are. For my part, the only adequate explanation of such solitary instances of infection with the measles poison, that I can see, is that they are instances of occurrence de novo. I submit that these persons, bedridden for the time being, especially in certain rooms, by their perspiration, &c., not only cause inordinate dampness of the paillasse, and thus soon start a fungus growth on the sodden straw, but are exposed to the influence of the spores given off both day and night. So that what might not be efficient contamination for a given person under ordinary circumstances, or when he occupies the bed only during the usual hours of sleep, may be converted into efficient contamination for that person by reason of the greater length of time he is compelled to breathe the atmosphere of the room, in close contact with the source of contamination.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Criminal charges, civil actions, and quarantine-The wake at Cork"Scientific" evidence in regard to sufficient or insufficient disinfection of a house in which there had been a case of measles-The value of the "most scientific and thorough disinfection” — Quarantine of the Czar of Russia imminent on account of measles-German measles in the steamer Ravenna at Plymouth-The cause of the disease to have been made out.

WHEN We look into criminal charges, civil actions, and questions of quarantine that have turned upon points connected with the dissemination of the contagium of measles, we find that the unwritten law of its distribution is much more definite, and that the general knowledge of the infective agent is far more profound, than might have been suspected from anything disclosed in the text-books. In The British Medical Journal this year is a notice of a criminal prosecution from which the following is an extract :

"Epidemic of Measles at Cork.

"Dr. Donovan, medical officer of health, in his monthly report for December, states that there is at present an epidemic of measles in Cork, which has not occurred previously for seven years. It is difficult to prevent it spreading owing to the fact of the infection being so intense in its early stage, and also because nearly all the cases are treated at home, where, as a rule, the disease runs through whole families. . . . At the police court last week a man charged by the corporation with a breach of the Public Health Act by 'waking' his child, who had died from measles. Dr. Donovan expressed his belief that the recent spread of measles was owing to such conduct as the defendant was charged with. All the persons

was