8o 



NATURE 



[September 17, 1914 



centage of them, but how much better it would be 

 if we took the fundamental problem of tubercular 

 infection in hand and prevented them from becoming 

 lame and deformed. 



There is at present on foot in England a great 

 scheme to enable the blind to read, and it deserves 

 our support because it is our fault that these people 

 are blind. The sad fate of the man born blind appeals 

 to all kind hearts; but men are not born blind, they 

 become blind within a week or two of birth because 

 of an infectious disease contracted from the mother at 

 birth. Science knows and has taught the world how 

 this blindness can be quite prevented, and it is because 

 of our faulty organisation for attending to maternities 

 amongst the poor that these people are blind. By 

 proper organisation practically all blindness arising at 

 the time of birth can be prevented. Why is it not 

 done? Thus our modern science can make the blind 

 to see and the lame to walk, but it is so manacled by 

 ancient ways and customs that it is left powerless, and 

 so there are these maimed and darkened lives of inno- 

 cent people, and they are left partially burdening the 

 community which has only its own folly to blame for 

 the whole stupid position. 



Let us consider lastly a disease which collects the 

 last toll from one-seventh of humanity, and debilitates 

 and enfeebles the lives of many whom it does not 

 entirely destroy. At all ages, in infancy, in the prime 

 of life,' and in life's decline, it snatches away the best 

 of our fellow-men. How are we organising our cam- 

 paign against tuberculosis? Bacteriology has taught 

 us that it is an infectious disease and has isolated the 

 organism. It is an undoubted fact, proven to_ the hilt 

 by many inquiries and observations, that infection 

 passes from individual to individual. How is this 

 knowledge being applied, and how are we attempting 

 to stem the tide of infection ? In the United Kingdom 

 alone about 70,000 persons die annually of the disease, 

 and all over the civilised world the total death-roll of 

 human kind annually from tuberculosis probably does 

 not fall short of a million souls. This tide of infection 

 is kept up, year in, year out, and every 70,000 dying 

 annually in Britain must have infected 70,000 fresh 

 victims before they themselves are carried away. Can 

 it not be stopped, this foul tide of infection? What 

 is being done to stop it? Sanatoria are being pro- 

 vided for the early cases, the bad and most infectious 

 cases are largely being left alone to sow infection 

 broadcast and then die. This is the chief means being 

 used at present to stop the tide. The early non- 

 infectious case is deemed the more important to look 

 after, and the well-advanced, open, thoroughly infec- 

 tious case is left to itself to infect others and then to 

 die. This is the condition of our public health attitude 

 in regard to tuberculosis. It is a travesty on the 

 application of all biological laws, and in direct opposi- 

 tion to all laws of racial preservation. Industrial con- 

 ditions have produced an artificial environment and 

 enhanced the chances of infection by the organism of 

 this disease; it should be our plan to copy nature's 

 method and safeguard the interests of the community, 

 and to do this we must proceed on the plan of separat- 

 ing the source of infection — that is to say, the infec- 

 tious individual from the sound individual. This is 

 done with success in the case of smallpox and cholera, 

 and this plan has eradicated hydrophobia ; why should 

 it not be carried out in the case of tuberculosis? 

 Under present conditions men, women, and children 

 are going on unwittingly infecting one another by the 

 thousand with tuberculosis in school, workshop, and 

 home, and we who know it take no public action and 

 raise no clamant outcry against it. It is of more 

 value to the community to isolate one pauper far 

 advanced in tuberculosis than to send ten early cases 



NO. 2342, VOL. 94] 



to sanatoria. This disease must be stopped at its 

 source as well as dealt with on its course. No disease 

 has ever been eradicated from a community by dis- 

 covering cures for it, and none ever will; many 

 diseases have disappeared because their sources have 

 been cut off. 



Let us be scientific, let us search out the truth; 

 having found it, let us act upon it, and let us conceal 

 nothing that is true. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Birmingham. — In consequence of the conversion of 

 the new buildings at Edgbaston into a base hospital 

 during the war, arrangements are being made whereby 

 as much as possible of the work usually carried on 

 there will be continued in Mason College and the 

 Municipal Technical School. Unfortunately, some of 

 the laboratory work will have to be curtailed, and 

 much research work will be suspended. 



The hostel for women students is at present used 

 to accommodate the nursing staff of the hospital, but 

 arrangements are being made to provide temporary 

 quarters for the evicted students in a private house 

 in Edgbaston. 



The following notice of resolutions passed by the 

 council on September 4 has been issued by the Vice- 

 Chancellor :— (i) That the University will, so far as 

 possible, continue its work for the benefit of those 

 students who are prevented from undertaking active 

 service in the Armv or Navy, but that the University's 

 advice to members of the staff, students, laboratory, 

 and other assistants, and college servants, who are 

 of suitable age and physically fit, is that they should 

 enlist and serve their' country. That students who 

 propose to enlist should consult the Vice-Principal or 

 the dean of the faculty of medicine, and (if minors) 

 should obtain the written consent of their parents or 

 guardians before sending in their applications. (2) That 

 with a view of encouraging enlistment, the University 

 undertakes to allow leave of absence to any of the 

 above-mentioned persons during their naval or mili- 

 tary service; that they be reinstated on their return 

 with no loss of positio'n or emoluments consequent on 

 their enforced absence; that the council pay them (or 

 such other person or persons as they may appoint) 

 such sums as with the pay and allowances they receive 

 from the Government wil'l make up their full salary or 

 wages ; and that students shall be entitled to postpone 

 any scholarships or other aids which they may hold, 

 and, where possible, may be allowed to shorten the 

 time of attendance at lectures necessary for a degree, 

 without, however, the remission of any essential re- 

 quirements in respect of examinations prescribed for 

 their course. 



Mr. L. J. GoLDSWORTHY has been appointed pro- 

 fessor of chemistry at the Victoria College of Science, 

 Nagpur. 



Dr. D. Waterston, professor of anatomy in King's 

 College, London, has been appointed to succeed Prof. 

 J. Musgrove as Bute professor of anatomy. University 

 of St. Andrews. 



Four Gresham Lectures on heredity will be de- 

 livered on October 6, 7, 8, and 9, by Dr. F. M. Sand- 

 with, at Gresham College, Basinghall Street, E.G. 

 I The lectures are free to the public, and will begin 

 each evening at six o'clock. 



The Merchant Venturers of Bristol have decided to 

 offer to engineering students of Belgian universities. 



