PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 733 
working under them, and constantly visiting all districts, 
certain sanitary instructors, whose object should be, by house 
to house visitation, to point out to the proprietors and in- 
habitants the defects in their dwellings. In the late plague 
scare in Melbourne, this scheme was actually carried out, 
with, [ am prepared to say, great success; but, as soon as 
the fright was over, these officers were dismissed, and we— 
that is to say, the people of Melbourne—have returned to 
our former haphazard methods. Phthisis is a disease of the 
poor, and, as some authors put it, “increases in an inverse 
ratio to the rates.’ I am sure an immense amount of the 
disease could be prevented by improving the dwellings of 
the working classes, and that the regulations with respect 
to the erection of their tenements should be more stringently 
enforced, and placed in more resolute hands than those in 
which they are now. Sleeping rooms are often built 
without even a fireplace or any opening communicating 
with the outside air, and it is a rare thing to see any 
attempt at ventilating the floors. I could spend all this 
evening detailing to you the faultiness in workmen’s 
dwellings, and it is just these little seemingly unimport- 
ant matters which allow the propagation and dissemina- 
tion of tubercle. 
(3.) Another subject en is very much to the fore 
in Kurope and America, is the establishment of Sana- 
toria. In my early days, we were taught that such 
institutions were most undesirable, as by concentrating 
consumptives in a few wards, they tended to spread the 
‘disease. This view seems to have changed, and the 
agreement of opinion seems to be that much good can now 
be effected by affording an asylum to the phthisical in the 
earliest manifestations of the disorder. : 
I cannot say I have had much experience in this 
direction. However, I have been informed that the 
establishments at Echuca and Mount Macedon have been 
the means of saving many lives. I should fancy it would 
have been better to have gathered these people together, 
like the Israelites of old, under separate tents, instead of 
in a brick or wooden building; for the phthisical bear cold 
very well, contrary to the general idea, and these tem- 
porary canvas constructions can be destroyed or exposed 
to the light in a manner.impossible with more permanently 
built shelters. 
There is only one other matter that I wish to allude to, 
and that is Dr. Koch’s remarks on the relation of bovine 
to human tubercle. It would seem that the two are not 
identical, much to the surprise of everyone like myself, 
