44 



scarcely attacked so long as he lived under old time conditions, an active 

 out-door life ; but when he tried to live under white man's conditions, in a 

 fixed home, he promptly began to fail and is still failing— just as the negro 

 fails when he crowds into the cities, and as the Italian fails who comes to 

 our cities from the pure air of his mountain home. We may say the Ital- 

 ian is degenerate, that he has no stamina, but that does not explain his 

 susceptibility, no more than to say the Chinaman is degenerate because he 

 can live under filth conditions that the white man can not bear. The Jews 

 coming from the old European cities, where their ancestors have for a long 

 time lived in the ghettos and under extremely unsanitary conditions, are 

 quite resisteut to attacks of tuberculosis; they are simply the surs'ival of 

 tlie fittest ; the Jew whose ancestry goes back to 4:he open country, to a pure 

 air life, can not liold up alongside the other, for Iiis ancestors have not un- 

 dergone the elimination process. 



Tuberculosis is a protest against bad air conditions. We ought to be 

 the healthiest and strongest people on the face of the earth : land is abun- 

 dant and fertile, we have no years of famine, men are not tied down as in 

 the old world ; the poor food of Europe and the long hours of toil are un- 

 known among us; at least there is no valid reason why long hours should 

 be required. In spite of these conditions tuberculosis is on the increase 

 among us, whereas in some European cities there is a decrease. Why 

 should this be so? 



If we write out statements of conditions, one line for clean European 

 cities and another line for American city conditions, and make an equation 

 bj' canceling conditions that equal each other, we have left the polluted 

 air condition or factor; it offsets all our advantages. 



Many individuals can thrive in the air of our cities today, others fail ; 

 thousands fail every year. Many contract the disease in the eitj' and go to 

 the country to die ; many die from city diseases, other than tuberculosis 

 and pneumonia, traceable to bad air conditions. 



Shall we let bad air conditions go on, or even get worse, as they seem 

 to be doing, and shall we let countless thousands die in the unceasing pro- 

 cess of adaptation to environment, or shall we attempt to modify the ab- 

 normal environment and allow these thousands to live? We are told that 

 tuberculosis is a curable disease, and that it is a preventable disease. It 

 is an introduced disease which we have allowed to flourisn unhindered. It 

 is a disease that flourishes only under certain surroundings. We can make 



