The Colored Race 139 



scrofulous glauds, hip-joint disease, Pott's disease, and chronic 

 bone and joint affections, were also caused by the same germ. 



The bacillus attacks the human body at all points, and 

 while the respiratory tract seems to bear the brunt of attack, 

 it is found that the percentage of infection here is by no means 

 so greatly superior to that of other organs or mucous chainiels. 

 In 1,000 autopsies, cited by Osier, there were 275 cases with 

 tubercular lesions, or over one-fourth. In the surgical clinic at 

 Wurzburg, among 8,873 patients, 1,287, or about one-seventh 

 were tuberculous, the bones and joints being involved in 

 1,037 cases. The post-mortem statistics of Harris and others 

 show that over one-third —perhaps over one-half— of the peo- 

 ple who live to middle age have some form of tuberculous in- 

 fection. * 



With these figures, and knowing how even with white chil- 

 dren the large majority of cases of meningitis are tubucular, 

 and how frequent it is in gastro-enteric lesions, how much 

 greater effect must the bacillus have in the more susceptible col- 

 ored child. Careful autopsies in the many cases of meningitis, 

 gastro-intestinal catarrhs, in "marasmus," "inanition," 

 "convulsions," and "dentition," would undoubtedly reveal 

 this malignant germ. We may ahhost define the term " vital 

 equation " to be the sum total of those forces which resist the 

 bacillus tuberculosis. 



From what I have here given, hardly more than in outline, 

 the great influence of this high rate of infant mortality must 

 be very ap[)arent. And it cannot be explained solely by the 

 fact that the colored population represents almost entirely the 

 poor and ignorant class, with all the evil influences of poverty 

 ignorance, dissipation, and general unhealthy living, — for it 

 must l)e remembered that there is a fair contingent of whites 

 in equal poverty, hunger and dirt, — ^but that the negro is more 

 susceptil)le, has less powers of endurance, and succumbs more 

 readily to the same diseases. Verily, the mills of God grind 

 fast ! Kven the high prolificness of the race under favorable 

 co7iditions could not keep pace with this mortality. On the 

 contrary, a lower birth rate as naturally follows a lesser vitality 



*The Medical Record, March 18, '93, p. 337. 



