354 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



family predisposition to the disease. This percentage accords fairly 

 closely with the published statistics of Dr. Williams and Dr. Cotton, 

 who give, as the result of their investigations into this point, 34 per 

 cent, and 36 per cent., respectively. In an inquiry carried out by 

 Dr. Squire he found that while about 33 per cent, of consumptives 

 present a family history of tuberculosis, statistics give grounds for 

 attributing the disease to occupations and surroundings in by far the 

 greater number of these cases, and place the possible influence of 

 heredity at about 9 per cent, instead of 33 per cent. 



It is certain that persons who have recovered from consumption 

 breed perfectly strong and vigorous children, who remain throughout 

 life free from the disease, and it is preposterous to suggest that if we 

 succeeded in saving the lives of the 40,000 persons who die annually 

 of consumption we should have thereby added to the burdens of the 

 community. We should thereby directly and indirectly have secured 

 enormous economic advantages in the productive industry of the per- 

 sons saved, and in their contributions to the maintenance of those 

 dependent on them. Mr. Baldwin Latham estimates the saving to this 

 country in twenty years, by sanitary work, in funerals avoided, sickness 

 prevented, and wage-earning powers retained, at £267,141,060; and 

 of that huge sum a big slice must go to the credit of tuberculosis. 



Then again, vulnerability to consumption does not necessarily imply 

 either bodily or mental weakness. The disease is most fatal in the 

 prime of life, and strikes down, not merely the feeble and incapable, 

 but the strong and vigorous, catching them at some moment of tem- 

 porary debility. The intellectually gifted seems to be peculiarly sus- 

 ceptible to it, and it has robbed the world of incalculable benefits in 

 the fruits of genius. It is not by any means merely an eliminator of 

 waste material, but a ruthless destroyer of some of the finest elements 

 of our species, and we need have no misgivings in resisting it and in 

 doing our best to extirpate it altogether. The enormous reduction 

 that has taken place in the mortality from consumption has been an 

 unmixed good, and its final disappearance from amongst us, which is 

 not a chimera, but a reasonable anticipation, will be attended by noth- 

 ing but gain to mankind. 



Dr. Maudsley thinks we shall never be able to keep bacilli out of 

 the body. Well, as regards the tubercle bacilli, we mean to try ! And 

 his gloomy prognostications in this matter are considerably discounted 

 when we find associated with them some disparagement of antiseptic 

 surgery and of the sterilization of food because, forsooth, there are 

 hundreds of different kinds of bacilli in the human mouth and intes- 

 tines, and because the nutritive value of certain kinds of food may be 

 reduced by sterilization. Our operating theaters, as they exist to-day, 

 and every kitchen range, are a standing protest against Dr. Maudsley's 



