RT Journal
T1 INfection from books.
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1899
FD November 4
VO XXXIII
IS 19
SP 1174
OP 1174
DO 10.1001/jama.1899.02450710056016
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1899.02450710056016
AB The State Board of Health of Michigan has, it is reported, sent a communication to the New York Board of Health, that twenty clerks employed on some volumes of records had died of consumption, and that on examination by a bacteriologist, the books were found full of tubercle bacilli. It is thought they became infected by a former clerk who had the habit of moistening his thumb with saliva in turning the pages. As first stated in the newspapers, this occurred in Michigan, but we have been informed that it really occurred in Germany. There is nothing remarkable in the fact that a set of books that had been coughed over by a succession of twenty consumptive clerks should contain tubercle bacilli, and decidedly need sterilization, but the story is an interesting one though too incomplete and indefinite. It ought to be given with a thorough medical report of all