166 PHYSIOLOGY AND TEMPERANCE. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

 HOW TO PREVENT DISEASE. 



1. Preventable Diseases. During recent- years much 

 progress has been made along the lines of acquiring more 

 accurate knowledge of the causes of the various diseases, their 

 modes of spreading, and of more effective measures for pre- 

 venting and restricting them. It is a nobler aim for the 

 physician to prevent disease than to cure it. The name of 

 Sir W. Jenner will ever be known, not so much because he 

 was a celebrated physician, but because by the introduction 

 of vaccination he established a method of preventing the 

 virulence of small-pox. Scurvy, which a few years ago was a 

 very common disease on board ships long out at sea without 

 vegetables, or amongst soldiers in war time where the diet 

 was not sufficiently varied, is now a rare disease, owing to the 

 discovery of the cause, and the use of lime-juice and lemon- 

 juice when fresh vegetables cannot be obtained. Leprosy 

 was a well-known disease in ancient days, and up to a few 

 hundred years ago it. was common in Great Britain. By a 

 continued and careful isolation of cases it has now become a 

 rare disease. The much dreaded cholera has been pretty 

 effectually held in check by the watchfulness of the Public 

 Health Officers at the various seaports. And of other pre- 

 ventable diseases, such as typhoid fever, measles, scarlet fever, 

 diphtheria, erysipelas, etc., better means of arresting local 

 epidemics have been used recently than in former years. 



But while much has already been done in the way of pre- 

 venting disease, more remains to be done. The seeds of 

 disease have been widely sown in the human race by inatten- 



