390 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



adviser as a liar, a stupid and irresponsible ignoramus, but publishes 

 the father's " cured " condition (?) to the world. Statistics would 

 indeed teach a valuable lesson with regard to these inherited dis- 

 eases and disease tendencies. After these numerical statistics have 

 been gathered, still another form of no secondary importance de- 

 mands our attention. It is not enough to know the number of 

 deaths which occur in a country from a number of given dis- 

 eases. We do absolutely nothing, except to establish an annual per- 

 centage with such figures. To complete the work, it is necessary 

 that all natural influences should be most carefully observed by com- 

 petent men. We must have accurate reports with reference to the 

 condition of the ground-water in all sections of the country, its tem- 

 perature, and seek to accurately define the relations of the same to 

 typhus and typhoid diseases. We must know the influences exerted 

 upon the eruption and extension of diseases by the water-courses 

 and prevailing winds. We must know what diseases prevail mostly 

 or most severely in the valleys and upon high and exposed table- 

 lands, as well as wooded districts or low and marshy lands. We 

 must know accurately the influences exerted by changes of tempera- 

 ture, seasons, wet or dry, and the connection between the diseases 

 of the different species of the animal kingdom. When all this is 

 done, our National Board of Health should publish, once in every 

 ten years, pathological geographical maps, with reference to the 

 extension of all forms of disease in the United States ; not one is to 

 be excepted, whether due to transmitted influences, to infection, or 

 to external influences. This, with the annual reports, in unison 

 with investigations at the hands of competent experts, and the work 

 of the veterinary department, constitutes, in my mind, the work of 

 a national organization for the purposes of preventive medicine. 



A NATIONAL VETERINARY INSTITUTE. 



In the preceding parts of this work we have endeavored to make 

 our readers individually appreciate that mankind is" constantly threat- 

 ened with several serious and in many cases fatal diseases, from con- 

 tact with diseased animals in life, or from the consumption of flesh, 

 milk, or other materials derived from them. We have also shown 

 that the prevention of these evils, as well as the ravages of the strictly 

 contagious animal diseases, can not be attained, or hoped for, with- 



