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a pure state of the atmosphere by insisting that the same shall 

 not be contaminated more than is unavoidable by dust of various 

 kinds or noxious or poisonous gases and vapors originating in 

 processes of manufacture, or by the careless introduction of dis- 

 ease germs therein. 



The harm done by inanimate impurities consists not only of 

 the diseases which they produce of themselves, but also of the 

 lowering of body resistance with a consequent greater suscepti- 

 bility to ether diseases. 



An individual whose • lungs are continually being filled with 

 the carbon particles of smoke, with particles of chalk dust, 

 marble dust or the dust of metals, whose lungs and bronchi are 

 continually being irritated by vapors of putrefaction, fumes from 

 a laboratory, etc., whose blood is continually absorbing the gases 

 of incomplete combustion, has very poor opportunity to become 

 the oldest inhabitant. The germs of tuberculosis and pneumonia, 

 to say nothing of the rest of the microbe family, mark him as an 

 easy victim. 



One of the most import?ni of the animate impurities is the 

 Bacillus tuberculosis. Rigidly enforced anti-spitting laws which 

 will prevent the consumptive from depositing his daily contri- 

 bution of 7,200,000,000 tuberle germs upon the sidewalk, later 

 to be tdried and carried by the atmosphere thru a radius of 

 many miles, will do much to decrease the yearly death rate from 

 this disease, which in Illinois alone carried off over 7,000 in- 

 habitants in 1907, and more than 150,000 in the whole United 

 States. 



Rigid quarantine of such diseases as scarlet fever and small- 

 pox must also be here considered. That the atmosphere is im- 

 portant in their distribution is demonstrated by the fact that 

 new cases often arise in the direction towards which the wind 

 was blowing from improperly quarantined infected premises. 



