DUST AND ITS DANGERS. 6 1 



from consumption of the lungs may be expec- 

 torating every day myriads of living and vir- 

 ulent tubercle bacilli, and that the life and 

 virulence of all of these bacilli are not destroyed 

 by prolonged drying. 



Now leaving this fact for a moment, let us 

 see how common a disease consumption or 

 tuberculosis is after all. 



From one seventh to one fourth of all the 

 people who die are carried off, most of them 

 prematurely, by this disease. In Europe about 

 one million persons die each year from con- 

 sumption that is about 3,000 every day. 



In the United States the deaths are counted 

 by hundreds of thousands. Neither old nor 

 young are spared, but the average age at death 

 has been estimated at thirty-seven. Let him 

 who has watched the progress of this insidious 

 disease in but a single case, imagine if he 

 can the misery and pain which these figures 

 represent. 



The disease is considerably less frequent in 

 some regions and countries than in others, but 

 everywhere where men live together in large 

 numbers, or live under bad sanitary conditions 



