67 



I feel confident that once the danger of consumption being 

 infectious is fully appreciated by the people we will have 

 greater efforts made to prevent it. 



In conclusion, it may seem to some of you that I have 

 painted a very black picture of tuberculosis and its dangers. 

 Let me say if I have increased your knowledge I have not 

 increased the danger, and all I would ask of you is to make 

 use of your greater knowledge. For, let me tell you, by way 

 of comfort, that tuberculosis is not only a preventable but a 

 curable disease, and the agents which prevent go far towards 

 curing. In the light of recent discoveries in serotherapeutics, 

 I am hopeful that some specific serum will yet be found, and 

 that instead of tuberculosis exterminating the human race 

 the human race will exterminate it. But it was not of the 

 cure of tuberculosis that I came to speak, but rather its pre- 

 vention, and might I not conclude in this, as in many other 

 instances, 



" Prevention is Better Than Cure." 



3DISCXJSSIODSr = 



Dr. Bright characterised the paper as a most able one. 

 He agreed with almost everything Dr. Sprott had said, and 

 did not know he had ever heard a paper calculated to be of 

 better service to the community read at this society's rooms. 

 He (the speaker) had been of opinion for 25 years that con- 

 sumption was infectious. He had seen husbands taking it 

 from wives, and wives from husbands, and he had always 

 advised that a consumptive patient should occupy a separate 

 room. Boiling the milk was most important. Dr. F. Swarbeck 

 Hall strongly advised it in this city years ago. Much could 

 be done by the efl&cient inspection of dairies and dairy cows. 

 They had seen last summer what great dangers the health of 

 the city was exposed to through bad and unwholesome milk 

 being sold. The spread of infection by the sputum of 

 diseased persons was a most serious thing. He believed very 

 strongly that the disease was hereditary ; that predisposition 

 was not all that was communicated from parent to child. 

 Tuberculosis was most common in aged milch cows. He 

 moved a vote of thanks to Dr. Sprott, and hoped that the 

 people would boil their milk, also that expectoration about 

 the streets would be suppressed. 



