An Early Reference to Infection Carriers
THAT healthy persons may be carriers of infection by the persistence of disease germs in the healthy human body has been known for fifteen or twenty years. The possibility of this kind of carrier of infection does not seem to have been at all familiar to our forefathers, and yet the conception seems to be expressed quite clearly by Richard Mead, the father of quarantine, when he said, in 1721: "If there be any Contagious Distemper in the Ship: the Sound men should leave their cloaths, which should be burnt; the men washed and shaved; and having fresh Cloaths, should stay in Lazaretto thirty to forty days. The reason for this is, because Persons may be recovered from a Disease themselves and yet retain matter of Infection about them a considerable time." In these words are expressed a truth the significance of which was not clearly grasped until nearly two hundred years after they were written. Richard Mead is the author also of the following dictum which, besides its general application, has a very special meaning for the typhoid carrier: "As nastiness is a great source of infection, so cleanliness is the greatest preventative."—Journal of the American Medical Association.