THE PKESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — PHYSICAL 289 



of people of the poorer classes with considerable powers 

 of resistance, but who, under the very unfavourable 

 conditions of dirt, ventilation, occupation, &c. which 

 prevail in their own homes, accpire the disease, and who, 

 in a hospital, have their vitality so improved that they 

 are able to defy it in spite of the presence of the micro- 

 organisms. But conditions as good, as regards diet, &c., 

 as those which obtain in special hospitals, are to be had 

 elsewhere in places where the tubercle bacilli are not so 

 abundant, and where therefore re-infection is not so 

 probable. Certain it is that the results obtained in our 

 special hospitals do not compare with those obtained at 

 foreign health-resorts, where the disease is not prevalent 

 among the natives, and where the bacilli are therefore 

 absent. It is probable, however, that the gathering of 

 infected individuals to health resorts tends to destroy 

 their value, and that they may, if fit conditions prevail, 

 if dwellings such as those which the sufferers came from 

 be built, if the old conditions of life be reproduced, 

 become absolute plague spots. 



Excellent health resorts are isolated places at high 

 altitudes ; better still are new countries where the 

 disease is not prevalent, or has not long been so. To 

 these we may send, with advantage, such of our consump- 

 tives as have not had their vital powers hopelessly 

 lowered, i. e. who are not in an advanced stage of con- 

 sumption, or such of them as are not so little resistant 

 as to have taken the disease in its acute form. Under 

 the new conditions, should their phagocytes overcome 

 the bacilli, there will be less probability of re-infection. 

 But sufferers from advanced or from acute tuberculosis 

 are obviously unsuited for expatriation, for, since they 

 are already infected, and since their phagocytes are 

 unable to destroy the bacilli already within them, an 

 environment free from the pathogenic micro-organisms 

 offers no advantage. 



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