384 SCIENCE OF HOME AND COMMUNITY 



and for people in ill health. The need of applying this treat- 

 ment as widely as possible is evident when we consider the 

 fact that there are annually in this country about 200,000 

 cases of typhoid fever with about 15,000 deaths. 



Method of typhoid vaccination. The typhoid bacteria 

 are first allowed to develop for a day on beef -tea jelly and 

 are then killed by exposure to high temperature. This 

 solution is then injected through a needle prick into the skin 

 of the upper arm. Three doses are given at intervals of 

 ten days. Only slight indisposition generally follows the 

 inoculation, and even this usually disappears inside of two 

 days. The effect of introducing this vaccine into the system 

 is to increase enormously the antibodies in the blood, which 

 are the body's means of combating this disease, so that 

 when living typhoid germs 'do enter the system these anti- 

 bodies are present in sufficiently large quantities to offset 

 the effects of the poison which the germs produce. This 

 immunity lasts for two years and in some cases longer. 



The great white plague. Another disease which should 

 be especially mentioned is tuberculosis of the lungs, or 

 consumption, as it is called. One tenth of all deaths are 

 due to this disease alone, the annual number of deaths in 

 the United States being over 100,000. The number of 

 deaths from this one disease equals the total number caused 

 by the following eight diseases combined : smallpox, typhoid 

 fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, cancer, diabetes, appendicitis, 

 and meningitis. The number of people in the United States 

 constantly suffering from consumption is about 500,000. If 

 the present death rate continues, 5,000,000 people of those 

 now living in this country will die of this disease. 



These figures have been given so as to emphasize the next 

 statement, that most of this terrible loss of life is unnecessary, 

 because tuberculosis is a curable and preventable disease. 

 As one looks back over the past it is a sad thing to think that 

 most of those thousands of deaths might have been pre- 



