186 ADVANCED PHYSIOLOGY 



night and day, winter and summer. The sanatoria, where 

 consumptives are taken, rely for their cures upon life in the 

 fresh air and good food, and their patients are kept out of 

 doors even in cold winter weather. No medicine has as yet 

 been found that is of any use, despite the many advertisements 

 with such claims. 



The recent advance in the treatment of tuberculosis has 

 been not so much in curing as in preventing the disease. We 

 know enough to-day of the means of its distribution to stop it, 

 if we could only induce everyone to act intelligently in the 

 matter. The best way to fight it is to distribute information 

 concerning it, as a wide-spread knowledge of a few important 

 facts, which are becoming wellknown to-day, will do much 

 towards checking tuberculosis. Chief among these facts are 

 the following: 



1. The disease is not hereditary, and parents do not ham 

 it down to their children. 



2. It is contagious; that is, one person may give it to an- 

 other. The child may " catch it " from his parents, but h( 

 does not inherit it. 



3. The germs may be carried in the air. 



4. Dried sputum, or dried scrofulous discharges may con- 

 tain the germs of tuberculosis. 



5. Every one has considerable power of resisting the disease; 

 this ability is increased by out-door life and good food; it is 

 decreased by in-door life, sedentary habits, poor food and 

 the use of alcoholic drinks. 



6. Cows sometimes have tuberculosis, and their milk ma; 

 contain the germs. 



The forces which can be marshalled against this dread foe 

 may thus be easily deduced. Each individual should tak< 

 plenty of out-door exercise, he should eat good, but not toe 

 rich food, and should let alcoholic drinks alone. He should 

 careful to use only such milk as comes from unquestionable 

 sources, unless he first sterilizes or pasteurizes it. When in 



