8 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



living rooms to contrast the conditions promoting tuberculosis and the 

 conditions that should obtain. A part of New York's exhibit shows the 

 disastrous effects of over-crowding under adverse light and air conditions, 

 comparing models of old tenements and those built under the new law 

 and bringing to mind the striking features of the "Congestion of New 

 York" exliibition held here last winter and the Tuberculosis exhibition 

 of three years ago. Massachusetts gives a study of the industrial aspect 

 of the disease, showing photomicrographs of dust and dust-clogged lungs, 

 and making plain the need of efficient protection for workers in horn 

 and celluloid, steel, iron, felt and other materials. 



A prominent place at the south entrance is occupied by the exhibit of 

 the New York Charity Organization Society's Committee on the Pre- 

 vention of Tuberculosis. This Committee at the recent International 

 Congress in Washington shared with Ireland the first prize of -$1,000 for 

 the best evidence of effective work. Just to glance through this Com- 

 mittee's mass of free literature put forth in Yiddish, Italian, Bohemian, 

 Swedish, French, German and English is to gain a realization of the 

 comprehensive character of its work. 



New York City has been fortunate in a cooperation of officials and 

 physicians, and, in the opinion of Dr. Robert Koch, has a better organi- 

 zation for the prevention of tuberculosis than any other city in the world. 

 In 1886, the death rate from tubercular diseases was 4.42 per 1,000; in 

 1907, it was 2.42 per 1,000, a decrease of more than 40 per cent. Of 

 the 14,000 free beds for tuberculosis patients in the United States, 25 per 

 cent are in New York City. But, as was emphasized at the meeting 

 that formally opened the exliibition, conditions in New York can never 

 become ideal, and tuberculosis as rare as smallpox, until there is a trio of 

 forces at work — officials, physicians and an enlightened public. Hence 

 the value of the Tuberculosis Exliibit as an educative force in counter- 

 acting habit, ignorance and prejudice; hence the place of the exhibition 

 within the walls of the American Museum of Natural History and its 

 classification with other evidences of increased knowledge and municipal 

 progress, such as playgrounds and free baths, parks, schools, museums 

 and free public lectures. 



A review of the whole exliibit, or of even a part of the whole, convinces 

 one that tuberculosis is a preventable disease, that the 1,095,000 lives 

 sacrificed to it each year (200,000 in the United States, 14,406 in New 

 York State in 1907) are an unnecessary loss. It is the human interest 



