798 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



throat. When these important parts are in an unhealthy condition, 

 where mouth breathing exists and other conditions inimical to normal 

 health, the patient is more predisposed to all forms of maladies of this 

 region, and the attack when developed is more apt to be of a serious 

 character. The more ordinary forms of sore throat, such as tonsilitis, 

 are frequently due to defects in the sanitary conditions and surround- 

 ings of the home. While modern sanitary plumbing, when properly 

 constructed, adds much to the convenience of the household, it is a cer- 

 tain menace to all its members if, through improper construction or de- 

 fective ventilation, decomposing matter collects in the waste pipes 

 and vitiates the atmosphere of the rooms. Many recurrent cases of 

 tonsilitis are due to this cause. Even the ordinary stationary wash- 

 stands may be a source of danger, especially in the bedroom, unless 

 thoroughly ventilated and care exercised that the traps are not filled 

 with decomposing matter. A physician of large experience in this 

 city is so imbued with the danger of this form of plumbing that he 

 condemns it in toto. When well constructed and well ventilated, 

 however, they can not be the source of danger in the household. 



Tuberculosis, which is responsible for so enormous a mortality, 

 frequently also affects the throat as well as the lungs. Although it 

 usually originates within the chest, it sometimes finds its primary 

 origin in the throat, and in a large percentage of cases the throat affec- 

 tion forms a complication of tuberculosis of the lungs. In spite of the 

 numerous remedies which have been advocated for the cure of this 

 disease, it must be admitted that our chief reliance is in proper nour- 

 ishment and climatic effects, and that hygiene is the sheet-anchor which 

 will eventually rescue us from this terrible foe of the human race. 



Recent investigations tend to prove more and more that tuber- 

 culosis is inherited in but rare cases; that inheritance is simply a pre- 

 disposing factor, and that the real cause is infection. As an illus- 

 tration of this, all have seen instances in which there had been 

 apparently no cases in a family for ten or fifteen years, when from 

 some cause one case develops, and this is soon followed by other cases 

 in the same family. Whatever role heredity may play in these cases, 

 this simply shows that the first case produced the infectious material 

 which found a suitable soil in the other members of the family and 

 developed a similar disease. The inheritance theory has been the 

 source of much injury by causing members of the afflicted family to 

 submit to the apparently inevitable instead of instituting measures 

 for its prevention. The infectious product in tuberculosis is not the 

 breath, as is so frequently believed by the laity, but simply the ex- 

 pectoration which comes from the diseased lungs or throat. When 

 this is allowed to come in contact with clothing or other material in 

 the room, it becomes dry and loads the atmosphere with a dust which 



