THE COMBATING OF TUBERCULOSIS. 461 



THE COMBATIXG OF TUBERCULOSIS. 



IN" THE LIGHT OF THE EXPERIENCE THAT HAS BEEN GAINED IN 

 THE SUCCESSFUL COMBATING OF OTHER INFECTIOUS DISEASES.* 



By Professor ROBERT KOCH, 



DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTION FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES, BERLIN. 



nnHE task with which this Congress will have to busy itself is one of 

 -^ the most difficult, but it is also one in which labor is most sure 

 of its reward. I need not point again to the innumerable victims tuber- 

 culosis annually claims in all countries, nor to the boundless misery it 

 brings on the families it attacks. You all know that there is no disease 

 which inflicts such deep wounds on mankind as this. All the greater, 

 however, would be the general joy and satisfaction if the efforts that are 

 being made to rid mankind of this enemy, which consumes its inmost 

 marrow, were crowned with success. There are many, indeed, who 

 doubt the possibility of successfully combating this disease, which has 

 existed for thousands of years and has spread all over the world. This 

 is by no means my opinion. This is a conflict into which we may enter 

 with a surely-founded prospect of success, and I will tell you the 

 reasons on which I base this conviction. Only a few decades ago the 

 real nature of tuberculosis was unknown to us; it was regarded as a 

 consequence, as the expression, so to speak, of social misery, and as this 

 supposed cause could not be got rid of by simple means people relied 

 on the probable gradual improvement of social conditions and did noth- 

 ing. All this is altered now. We know that social misery does indeed 

 go far to foster tuberculosis, but the real cause of the disease is a 

 parasite — that is, a visible and palpable enemy which we can pursue and 

 annihilate, just as we can pursue and annihilate other parasitic enemies 

 of mankind. 



Strictly speaking, the fact that tuberculosis is a preventable disease 

 ought to have become clear as soon as the tubercle bacillus was dis- 

 covered and the properties of this parasite and the manner of its trans- 

 mission became known. I may add that I, for my part, was aware of 

 the full significance of this discovery from the first, and so will every- 

 body have been who had convinced himself of the causal relation be- 

 tween tuberculosis and the tubercle bacillus. But the strength of a 



* An address delivered before the British Congress on Tuberculosis on 

 July 23. 



