84 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
meningococcic and anti-dysenteric sera of large curative and 
prophylactic value, and preventive because bactericidal in the 
human body. 
Tuberculin is a valuable agent in the treatment of some 
forms of tuberculosis though only in a limited way curative 
or preventive. 
Serum from those who have had acute poliomyelitis has been 
hopefully used in those attacked, though this agency is still in 
an experimental stage. 
Very hopeful is recent word that for the two most common 
types of pneumonia, there is now possible a curative serum of 
very great potency. 
Four. Sanitation. 
Sanitation always stands as a barrier to all communicable 
diseases. Water, milk and fly borne diseases are easily pre- 
ventable by rendering free from human and organic waste all 
“sources of food and drink. 
Polluted water is not only a typhoid source but perhaps less 
so than it is a source of the enteric diseases of infancy and 
childhood—which slay more people than does typhoid. 
The unspeakable fly, filth born, filth bred and filth bearing, 
is a busy, ubiquitous distributor of whatever disease germs the 
body may excrete. 
Personal hyg lene is a central factor in disease prevention, 
especially hygiene of the hands. The Mosaic legislation says 
nothing of hygiene of the teeth, though it well may have done 
so. However, it is too late now to pass the suggestion to 
Moses. However, Moses passes the suggestion to us, and it 
were well were it heeded as Divine Command, that we should 
not “eat with unwashed hands’’; neither should we cook with 
them, and especially we should keep thein out of our mouths 
when eating is not the order. 
Five. Education. 
We look to educational processes for our greatest gain in 
disease prevention. “The people perish for lack of know- 
ledge.” 
