CONTAGION

term designating communication of disease from one person ’ to another, as the result of direct contact with diseased person, or with clothes, papers, or ‘carriers’—(i.e.) persons who transmit disease without suffering from it themselves. A distinction is sometimes made between contagious and infectious diseases, but the difference is merely one of degree, and the distinction has no scientific basis. Typical contagfous diseases are Spanish influenza, diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, typhus fever, small pox, and bubonic plague. See QUARANTINE.