baz PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 
‘ those who from the first tear at the nipple with lusty 
ferocity. 
No, inheritance won't do. Tubercle means insanitary 
dwellings, crowded, unventilated bedrooms, and want of 
sunlight. Melancholic convalescents from fever and those 
debilitated from wounds and extreme hardships, all things 
considered, are not more inclined to tubercular phthisis than 
any other people; but those who work in close atmospheres, 
who sleep in badly-aired chambers, and are herded together 
in limited spaces, certainly are eminently.so. Every medi- 
cal military officer knows this, or Parkes’ “‘ Manual of 
Hygiene ’’ was written for nothing. ‘The depressing poison 
which devitalises the system, and allows it to become a breed- 
ing-ground for tubercle, is re-breathed air. Lock three 
people in a cell with but scant communication with the out- 
side, and let them inhale, night after night, each other's 
breaths, and, as sure as they're there. one will shortly go 
under with the dreaded bacillus. This is the predisposition. 
A peculiar want of vital resistance, induced by inhalation of 
organic particles, really causes the susceptibility of which we 
read so much. 
Let it be known, then; declare it from the house-tops, for 
it concerns all, that tuberuclosis is an infectious disease, in 
- its way almost as communicable as an exanthema, or fungus 
disease of the skin. The sooner this is recognised the better ; 
for then can be begun more preventable measures, which it 
is for you to suggest, for you to educate the public into 
grasping, and for them to insist on their representative 
bodies passing, in the shape of such enactments as will make 
sanitation something real and beneficial. 
What these suggestions are, let me endeavour to briefly 
outline, as they will be enumerated from time to time by 
bodies similar to yours in Europe and the States of 
America : — z 
(1.) The isolation and notification of phthisis. If it is 
possible to effectually carry out any of the schemes hitherto 
devised, then, to be of use, a certain completeness is neces- 
sary. One could not report the wife of a labouring man 
and omit the inhabitant of a fashionable suburb. An in- 
interference with the latter would have to be very carefully 
performed, and would require more than the average savoir 
faire to avoid friction. Still, some proposal, happy in its 
incidence, might come from you, and I would suggest that 
the opportunity should be seized, and the subject fully dis- 
cussed. 
(2.) Another proposal that could be made is, that the 
Central Board of Health in each of these States should have 
