472 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



necessary when consumptives die or change their residences has to be 

 effected. Fortunately it is not at all necessary to notify all cases of 

 tuberculosis, nor even all cases of consumption, but only those that, 

 owing to the domestic conditions, are sources of danger to the people 

 about them. Such limited notification has already been introduced 

 in various places — in Norway, for instance, by a special law, in 

 Saxony by a Ministerial decree, in New York, and in several American 

 towns which have followed its example. In New York, where notifi- 

 cation was optional at first and was afterwards made obligatory, it has 

 proved eminently useful. It has thus been proved that the evils which 

 it used to be feared the introduction of notification for tuberculosis 

 would bring about need not occur and it is devoutly to be wished that 

 the examples I have named may very soon excite emulation everywhere. 



There is another measure connected with notification — viz., disin- 

 fection, which, as already mentioned, must be effected when consump- 

 tives die or change their residence in order that those who next occupy 

 the infected dwelling may be protected against infection. Moreover, 

 not only the dwellings but also the infected beds and clothes of con- 

 sumptives ought to be disinfected. A further measure, already recog- 

 nized on all hands as effective, is the instructing of all classes of the 

 people as to the infectiousness of tuberculosis and the best way of 

 protecting oneself. The fact that tuberculosis has considerably 

 diminished in almost all civilized states of late is attributable solely 

 to the circumstance that knowledge of the contagious character of 

 tuberculosis has been more and more widely disseminated and that 

 caution in intercourse with consumptives has increased more and more 

 in consequence. If better knowledge of the nature of tuberculosis has 

 alone sufficed to prevent a large number of cases this must serve us 

 as a significant admonition to make the greatest possible use of this 

 means and to do more and more to bring it about that everybody may 

 know the dangers that threaten them in intercourse with consump- 

 tives. It is only to be desired that the instructions may be made 

 shorter and more precise than they generally are, and that special 

 emphasis may be laid on the avoidance of the worst danger of infec- 

 tion, which is the use of bedrooms and small ill-ventilated work- 

 rooms simultaneously with consumptives. Of course the instructions 

 must include directions as to what consumptives have to do when they 

 cough and how they are to treat their sputum. Another measure, 

 which has come into the foreground of late, and which at this moment 

 plays to a certain extent a paramount part in all efforts for the com- 

 bating of tuberculosis, works in quite another direction. I mean the 

 founding of sanatoria for consumptives. 



That tuberculosis is curable in its early stages must be regarded 

 as an undisputed fact. The idea of curing as many tuberculous 



