CHAPTER LX 



MICROBE OF THE GREAT WHITE PLAGUE 



CONSUMPTION, or tuberculosis, is, by all odds, the 

 worst disease that afflicts the human race. It is 

 called tuberculosis because it forms tubercles, or 

 small bunches, in the lungs. These tubercles are 

 formed out of broken down cells and tissues of the 

 lung. By continuing to form, they finally destroy 

 the lung. The lung is, as it were, consumed. 

 Hence the popular name for the disease, consump- 

 tion. 



The disease is usually located in the lungs; but 

 it may locate in any other parts of the body the 

 bones, the spine, the joints, the bowels, the brain. 



Consumption is the worst disease because it de- 

 stroys more lives and causes more suffering than 

 any other disease. At least, one seventh of the hu- 

 man race die with consumption. The population 

 of the earth is estimated at 1,500,000,000, the 

 average length of human life at forty years. There- 

 fore every forty years 1,500,000,000 people die. 

 One seventh of this number, or 214,285,754 die with 

 consumption every forty years, 5,357,142 every 

 year; 446,428 every month; 14,880 every day; 620 

 every hour, 10 every minute. 



Imagine a single case : The individual knows not 



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