consumption: its cause and cure. 115 



reach out its arms to the robust and the deUcate alike, 

 and gradually it progresses, sapping the vitality until 

 death ensues. 



All that it is necessary to say here about the action of 

 consumption is that the disease has greatly advanced 

 before it attacks the lungs. Gradually the lung cells 

 are destroyed, passing away in an offensive expectora- 

 tion, until finally so much of the lungs has rotted away 

 that the disease becomes incurable. 



In some cases the patient may live for years, gradually 

 growing weaker, while in other cases the patient is sud- 

 denly seized with the disease, grows rapidly worse, and 

 dies within a few weeks or months. 



So much for the general characteristics of consumption, 

 which are known even by schoolboys. We must look 

 deeper and ascertain exactly how consumption originates, 

 how it progresses and why it progresses, in order that, if 

 possible, we can discover a remedy for it. If we exam- 

 ine the expectoration of a consumptive with a powerful 

 microscope, we will see that it contains a great number 

 of different kinds of microbes. Some are tube-like, of 

 such small size that thousands of them might exist in a 

 drop of the expectorated matter without being visible 

 to the naked eye. A still more careful study of these 

 minute objects reveals the fact that they have life and 

 motion and rapidly propagate themselves. The tube-like 

 microbe is called the tubercle of consumption, and it is 

 the countless numbers of these tubercles in the lungs 

 which cause the gradual decay of those organs. There 

 are other microbes in the expectoration of consumptives, 

 but the tubercle is dreaded as the main source of danger. 



It was only a few years ago that the particular microbe 

 claimed to be the cause of consumption was discovered 

 by Dr. Koch. Since then, with the most powerful 

 microscopes obtainable, I have studied these microbes 

 very carefully, propagated and photographed them 

 (see Plate XII.). The scientific world was slow to accept 

 the microbe theory of consumption, and, when it did 

 accept it, it went too far. It proclaimed the tuber- 



