Note 59 — Chapter VI

While most physicians lay too great stress on the factor of infection, this mistake is by no means universal. Maurice Fishberg, for example (quoted in the Medical Review of Reviews, XXII, 8, August, 1916) states: "For many years the writer was physician to a charitable society, having under his care annually 800 to 1,000 consumptives who lived in poverty and want, in overcrowded tenements, having all opportunities to infect their consorts; in fact most of the consumptives shared their bed with their healthy consorts. Still, very few cases were met with in which tuberculosis was found in both the husband and wife. Widows, whose husbands died from phthisis, were only rarely seen to develop the disease."