WHAT MEDICINE HAS DONE AND IS DOING FOR THE RACE 443 



been taken by the American Medical Association and 

 other bodies. 



SPECIAL FORMS OF DISEASE 



Tuberculosis, called by John Bunyan "the Captain of the 

 Men of Death" and more recently "the white plague," has 

 greatly diminished in its mortahty; thus in England and 

 Wales tuberculosis of the lungs in 1847 carried off 3189 of 

 every milhon Hving, whereas in 1928 this death rate had 

 fallen to 755. Many factors have played a part in this change: 

 improved conditions of living and more wholesome food, 

 better ventilation, more open-air hfe, less overcrowding, 

 education of the public in general hygiene and in particular as 

 regards the risk of spread of infection. The control of milk 

 from tuberculous cows is most important in preventing 

 infection of infants and young children with the bovine 

 form of tuberculosis. The open-air treatment, though 

 advocated in 1840 by G. Bodington of Sutton Coldfield, 

 Warwickshire, England, and by Henry MacCormac of 

 Belfast in 1855, and put in practice by BrehmeratGobersdorf 

 in Silesia in 1859 and by E. L. Trudeau in the Adirondacks in 

 1884, did not meet with general adoption in Great Britain 

 until the end of the last century, long after the fall in the 

 tuberculosis mortality had begun. Its influence in educating 

 tuberculous persons in a proper manner of life has been most 

 beneficial, but otherwise it has its limitations; it is not easy 

 to get the poor to go to sanatoriums in the earliest and most 

 curable stages, and it must be realized that in order to 

 consohdate the cure begun at sanatoriums tuberculous 

 patients should continue to lead a protected life in a colony or 

 village settlement where they carl earn their living in 

 hygienic workshops and other favorable conditions; a 

 beginning in the establishment of such permanent industrial 

 colonies for ex-sanatorium tuberculous persons has been 

 made at Papworth Hall near Cambridge and at Preston Hall 

 near Maidstone, Kent, in England, under the direction of Dr. 

 P. C. Varrier-Jones who has organized industries on a self- 

 supporting basis. During the years that the Papworth Colony 

 has been in existence no case of tuberculosis has occurred in 

 the children living in the cottages with their formerly 



