ATMOSPHERIC AIR IN RELATION TO TUBERCULOSIS 



By guy HINSDALE, A. M., M. D., Hot Springs, Va. 

 (With 93 Plates) 



CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 



We are compelled to acknowledge at the outset the difficulty or 

 impossibility of analyzing the relationship of atmospheric air to 

 tuberculosis so as to isolate the influence of all other factors. It 

 would be totally useless and impossible to consider air independent 

 of sunlight, heat, rainfall, the configuration of the earth's surface; 

 racial characteristics, social environment, including dwellings, cloth- 

 ing, food, and drink. 



As a resultant of all these and many other factors in the tubercu- 

 losis problem, we obtain the figures of mortality which are pub- 

 lished from time to time by various cities, states, and nations. The 

 problem seems incapable of solution. One might as well survey an 

 oak that has grown for centuries and set out to determine the rela- 

 tive value .of the atmospheric air, the sunlight, the rainfall, and the 

 various constituents of the soil and its environment in producing 

 the sturdy, deeply rooted, and wide-spreading tree which has seen 

 ages come and go. 



The world-wide efforts now made to determine the nature of this 

 infection and especially its bacteriologic and pathologic character 

 are accompanied by a general effort to limit its spread. We are 

 encouraged to believe that future generations will be provided with a 

 practical and efficient method of destroying this insatiate monster. 



Undoubtedly we have begun at the right end, but we only began 

 within the memory of nearly all of us, only thirty-two years ago, 

 when the true cause of the disease was first isolated and revealed 

 to the human eye. 



Previously we were as the blind leading the .blind, groping about 

 in search of special climates, special foods or medicines, meeting 

 with more or less success in so far as the dietetic, hygienic, out-of- 

 door plan of treatment was carried out. These curative measures 

 succeeded then, as they succeed now, but preventive measures 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 63, No. 1 



I 



