STAMINA. 449 



STAMINA.* 



By Dr. a. n. bell, a.m., 



BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



ANALYSIS of vital statistics for the last three-quarters of a cen- 

 tury shows an average increase in the duration of human life 

 among civilized peoples from 42.2 years to 48.5 years. The chief in- 

 crease has been during the latter half of that period, and, for the most 

 part, by the reduced mortality from zymotic diseases, but, above all, 

 from pulmonary tuberculosis, from which the reduction of mortality 

 has been nearly fifty per cent. 



Inquiry with regard to the means by which this reduction has 

 been effected, shows it to have been almost wholly by sanitary efforts; 

 by dealing with and destroying unsanitary surroundings, soil-drain- 

 age, purifying water supplies, reporting and restricting communicable 

 diseases, sanitary supervision of schools, the destruction of sputum — 

 the now everywhere recognized fountain-head from which the army 

 of bacilli is perpetually reinforced — abolishment of cellar-dwellings, 

 diminished overcrowding, cleanliness, disinfection, isolation and aera- 

 tion; improved tenements, opened-up and wider streets, public parks 

 and recreation grounds and establishment of sanitaria. This cata- 

 logue of sanitary efforts might be still further extended, though alto- 

 gether without record of special effort for improved nutrition except 

 for nursing infants. 



Communicable as all competent observers know tuberculosis to be, 

 while they equally well know that it is not so under all circumstances, 

 it is indeed questionable whether any one of sound constitution and 

 well nourished has ever contracted the disease from nursing con- 

 sumptives, or from living with them otherwise, under good hygienic 

 surroundings. 



On the contrar} 7 , no matter how healthful the surroundings or the 

 salubrity of the atmosphere, for poorly nourished and feeble persons, 

 from whatever cause, there is no immunity from tuberculosis. For 

 no one who even approximately comprehends the universality of 

 microbic life — and of none more than tubercle bacilli — can fail to per- 

 ceive that, however much we may be able to modify the external rela- 

 tions bearing upon liability to tuberculosis, nevertheless every indi- 



* Read at the International Congress on Tuberculosis, St. Louis, Mo., 

 October 3, 1904. 



