DUST AND ITS DANGERS. 73 



consumptive persons may be dangerous shall 

 have become widespread, our efforts in the di- 

 rection of the prevention of this disease will 

 continue to be counteracted by the misdeeds 

 of the ignorant and careless. 



Consumption is at best, if it has any best, a 

 most distressing and deplorable malady. But 

 when we have learned, as we have within the 

 last decade, that the chances of recovery are 

 often very good indeed ; that it is not hopeless, 

 as was formerly believed ; that it is not in- 

 herited ; when we appreciate that with due 

 care the stricken one need not in the least be 

 a source of danger to others, even to his house- 

 mates ; when we fully realize that the appalling 

 prevalence and mortality of the past has been 

 due to ignorance of the nature of the disease 

 and the mode of its transmission, we should be 

 able to appreciate how much we owe of com- 

 fort and of hope to the investigations in 

 scientific medicine, which have given us all 

 this, if they have not yet brought to us such 

 means as will directly cure the disease in 

 individuals when once firmly established. 



