410 ON THE ORIGIN, PROPAGATION, 



mer months. On visiting The Nessel three years ago, 

 I was requested to look into a hut occupied by a man 

 suffering from a racking cough, accompanied by copious 

 expectoration. I did so. It was easy to see that the 

 poor fellow was the victim of advanced lung disease. 

 In the same hut lived his daughter, who, when I first 

 saw her, presented the appearance of blooming health 

 and vigour. Acquainted as I was with Koch's dis- 

 coveries, I remarked to a friend who accompanied me, 

 that the girl lived in the midst of peril. We had here 

 the precise conditions notified by Cornet : spitting on 

 the floor, drying of the sputum, and the subsequent 

 treading of the infectious matter into dust. Whenever 

 the hut was swept, this dust mingled freely with the 

 air, and was of course inhaled. 



I warned the girl against the danger to which she 

 was exposed. But it is sometimes difficult to make 

 even cultivated people comprehend the magnitude of 

 this danger, or take the necessary precautions. A year 

 afterwards I visited the same hut. The father was 

 standing in the midst of the room a well-built man, 

 nearly six feet high, and as straight as an arrow. He 

 was wheezing heavily, being at intervals bowed down 

 by the violence of his cough. On a stool in the same 

 room sat his daughter, who, a year previously, had pre- 

 sented such a picture of Alpine strength and beauty. 

 Her appearance shocked me. The light had gone out 

 of her eyes, while the pallor of her face and her panting 

 breath showed only too plainly that she also had been 

 grasped by the destroyer. There are thousands at this 

 moment in England in the position I then occupied 

 standing helpless in the presence of a calamity that 

 might have been avoided. All that could be done was 

 to send the sufferers wine and such little delicacies as I 

 could command. Last summer I learned that both 



