THE BRADSHAW LECTURE 9 



A wife watches the deathbed of her consumptive husband, 

 and presently sinks herself under consumption ; and there 

 may be no tubercle or acknowledged examples of scrofula in 

 her pedigree. Yet even here the latent diathesis may fairly 

 be presumed to have existed. Very few families are perfectly 

 free from strumous intermixture. 



Could the blinding effect of a predominant 

 theory be more clearly exposed than by this 

 explanation ? 



There is no such thing as hereditary tuberculosis. 

 "We are dealing with a disease both infectious and 

 inoculable, the bacillus of which has been known 

 for thirty years. During that period better hygiene, 

 housing, and food have reduced the mortality due 

 to tuberculosis from 25 to 10 in every 1000. By 

 complete segregation the disease could be as 

 certainly stamped out as hydrophobia was by the 

 courageous muzzling order of Mr. Walter Long, 

 to whom all honour is due. Of what service is it 

 to inquire whether one family is more liable than 

 another to this disease, when all are liable, and 

 97 per cent, of 500 consecutive autopsies were 

 found by Naegeli to show evidence that tuber- 

 cular infection had at one time taken place. 

 Statistics to prove an hereditary predisposition 

 are useless, unless taken of persons removed 

 immediately after birth from the tubercle-infected 



