34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



almost any part of the body. Thus, consumption is only a special 

 manifestation of the general disease tuberculosis. The germs 

 are not merely thorns in the flesh, producing a local inflammation, 

 but they are plants which multiply rapidly, and form in their 

 growth poisons as dangerous to life as if they were elaborated in 

 one large plant instead of millions of small ones. 



The germ of leprosy is very like that of tuberculosis. In both 

 diseases, little masses of inflammatory tissue form around the 

 bacilli, and then, not having the vitality of normal structures, 

 these break down, involving other parts in their own destruction. 

 Leprosy attacks chiefly those parts of the body which are exposed, 

 like the hands, feet, arms, and legs, though it occasionally invades 

 the mucous membranes, and it is seen in the nose, mouth, and 

 throat. Tuberculosis, on the other hand, seeks the deeply seated 

 organs by preference, though it, too, may affect the throat ; and 

 many of the so-called scrofulous sores are tubercular. Leprosy 

 thrusts out its hideous deformities and disgusting ulcers to the 

 gaze of the passer-by ; tuberculosis hides its devastations beneath 

 an exterior which may be even beautiful. The greater sufferer 

 from fever, lassitude, and pain is the consumptive. So, too, is 

 his mental suffering greater, since the leper is usually a person 

 who has lived in filth and squalor, while the tubercular patient is 

 more likely than not to be one who has worked hard to gratify 

 some ambition and who feels more keenly than bodily pain the 

 necessity of abandoning active life. Leprosy is not a rapidly 

 fatal disease, usually lasting from nine to twenty years after its 

 recognition. Consumption fortunately does not allow its victims 

 to linger so long, but kills in from one to four years in the great 

 majority of cases. 



In order to see how formidable an enemy we have in tubercu- 

 losis, let us contrast it with some other diseases which are even 

 more dreaded. Leprosy is rare in most civilized countries ; even 

 in Asia Minor it causes less than one per cent of the total death 

 rate. Typhoid and scarlet fevers are each held responsible for 

 three per cent ; diphtheria and pneumonia, for five per cent each. 

 The deaths from consumption alone, omitting such tubercular 

 troubles as hip-joint disease, Pott's disease of the spine, some forms 

 of meningitis, intestinal marasmus, caries of bone, and many ab- 

 scesses, make up, according to one authority, about twenty per 

 cent of the total death rate of this country. It is estimated that 

 one third of all deaths occurring in the medical wards of hospitals 

 are due to tuberculosis, and that a fifth of all surgical cases 

 treated many of which are cured are tubercular. We may 

 bring these statistics home by saying that you and I were born 

 with one chance in five of dying of some form of tuberculosis. If 

 our chance of being instantaneously and decently killed by an 



