352 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



other great sanitary improvements that have been effected in the last 

 half century, and has taken place in the absence of any special precau- 

 tions against the dissemination of the seed of the disease. Is it too 

 much to hope that, now that we know this seed and can intercept and 

 destroy it at the shoots by which it is discharged from its culture beds 

 and granaries to be scattered broadcast, we shall be able still further, 

 and more materially to reduce the tuberculosis death rate and the 

 prevalence of the disease? Nay, further, is it too much to hope that 

 by removing those who have contracted the disease from the impover- 

 ished, insalubrious and ill-regulated conditions of life that have invited 

 and fostered it and by immersing them in pure air and unpolluted 

 sunlight in restful and hopeful circumstances, with a liberal and well- 

 adjusted diet and under constant skilled medical supervision, so that 

 untoward symptoms are dealt with as they arise and every bodily 

 function is ordered, as far as may be, in the interests of health — and 

 this is what sanatorium treatment consists in — is it too much to hope 

 that we shall thus save many lives that would otherwise be lost, and 

 prolong the days and alleviate the sufferings of those who are beyond 

 hope of permanent recovery? Our sanatoriums in this country have 

 not yet been in existence for a sufficient length of time to allow of the 

 collection of wholly trustworthy statistics, but the returns as far as 

 they go are highly encouraging, and confirmatory of the favorable 

 verdict on sanatorial treatment arrived at by German institutions. 

 Dr. Maudsley, himself, admits that so far the outcome of experience 

 seems to be that many patients who are sent to sanatoriums in the 

 early stage of the disease, recover if the}'' are kept long enough, that 

 most of those in a more advanced stage improve while they are there, 

 frequently relapsing afterwards, and that those who are badly diseased 

 ought not to be sent at all. And this, he calls a modest result. I am 

 disposed to describe it as a result of which we may well feel proud and 

 as one that, if properly presented to the public, should lead to the 

 adoption on a larger scale than hitherto of this system of treatment at 

 that stage of the disease when it may prove so efficacious. The benefits 

 to be derived from sanatorial treatment have perhaps been exaggerated 

 in prospect. It can not altogether supersede other forms of treatment, 

 at high altitudes on sunny littorals, on the veldt, prairie or desert, or 

 by sea voyages ; it can not reconstruct a disorganized lung, but to those 

 whose means do not enable them to command the best treatment under 

 private care, and in whom the tubercular lesions are still of limited 

 extent, and leave enough breathing space, it opens up new hopes of 

 restoration to health. Even to the affluent, sanatorial treatment is 

 profitable in the medical discipline it involves. The time may come 

 when science will give us some tuberculin, or serum, or antitoxin, or 

 antiseptic, that will kill the tubercle bacillus in its hidden lair, counter- 



