152 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



of mild type to educate the body to resist the more serious 

 one. In diphtheria and erysipelas the curative agents are now 

 within our grasp. In typhoid, plague, and cholera the object 

 will, in all probability, shortly be attained, and so on. If, how- 

 ever, we fail to follow Nature's guidance ; if we do not benefit 

 by her lessons as to removing the causes tending to disease ; 

 if we allow our populations to grow up in conditions depress- 

 ing to the system and lessening the power of resistance ; and, 

 finally, if we fail to accept her gifts in the matter of the 

 agents which will increase that resistance, then we must 

 be prepared to suffer the inevitable consequences. Wasteful 

 methods of disposing of our cast-off products may be unavoid- 

 able in modern civilisation ; but we can at least waste them 

 in a clean way, and avoid fouling our sea-beaches and rivers, 

 and polluting our air and our water supplies. We can bring 

 up the young with clean food and pure air, and teach them to 

 keep their bodies in health, and we can finally supplement 

 their natural resistance to disease by such means as Nature 

 has put within our grasp. 



What we ought to do. 



This is a new country, and we have here Nature at her 

 best, working for our benefit in the matter of sunlight and 

 open spaces, and we have the experience of past generations 

 to guide us. Is it not a pity that we should begin at the 

 beginning again, and pass through all the weary process of 

 instruction which older countries have undergone in the 

 matter of epidemics of disease ? We place our sanitary work 

 in the hands of administrators often careless or ignorant, and 

 listen to the idle fears and prejudices of faddists, who do not 

 take the trouble to follow the history or principles of inocula- 

 tion against disease and are wilfully blind to its results. We 

 are now, as regards sanitation in all its branches, where 

 England stood fifty years ago, and it will follow that our 

 lesson will be forced on us only after suffering the full 

 penalties for ignoring Nature's law. 



