THE DANGERS OF SOCIALISTIC LEGISLATION 467 



or to come to a conclusion without having devoted any considera- 

 tion at all to the consequences of their endeavours. 



An amount of injury to the race which it is difficult to over- 

 estimate is likely to follow upon the recent legislation concerning 

 tuberculosis. The people of Northern Europe have been sub- 

 jected to a very stringent selection as regards tuberculosis during 

 several thousand years ; the selective process has become more 

 stringent of late years in proportion to the increase in the town 

 population. At the present time it is so stringent that, probably 

 every individual in Northern Europe, living in a town or even 

 in a village, is infected with tubercle many times during life. I 

 do not mean merely that the tubercle bacillus gains access to his 

 body and is immediately eliminated but that it becomes estab- 

 lished therein and multiplies, being eliminated only after some 

 time. The evidence that this happens is overwhelming. Thus 

 Ribbert has published the records of 5000 consecutive post- 

 mortem examinations of cases that died in general hospitals. 1 

 Traces of tuberculosis were found in every one of these cases. 

 In all similar records of which I know, the lowest percentage of 

 cases in which traces of tuberculosis have been detected is 

 seventy-five. It has also been shown that very frequently the 

 signs that are met with of tubercular disease of the lungs of 

 long standing indicate very considerable and extensive damage 

 and destruction of tissue, not slight infection; 2 yet such indivi- 

 duals have recovered from the disease and this has had no 

 permanent effect upon their health. Now it is well known that 

 when the tuberculosis bacillus is introduced among a race which 

 has had no previous experience of the disease many individuals 

 contract the disease and die of it rapidly under conditions which 

 would bring about a cure in susceptible European patients. 



The explanation of this fact is quite simple. The relative 

 immunity of the European has been brought about by a process 

 precisely similar to that described in the case of the deer and the 

 carnivora. When the tubercle bacillus first appears, the different 

 individuals of the race will differ in their susceptibility to its 

 ravages, just as they differ in other characters. The least 

 susceptible will have an advantage over the more susceptible and 

 will have a greater chance of producing and rearing children. 

 Taking the average resistance of the race originally as o, some 



1 Quoted by W. Osier, Pi'i7iciples and Practice of Medicine, 1904. 

 • Brouardel, Trans. British Congress on Tuberculosis, vol. i. 1902. 



