DISCOVERY 



151 



spares no class, falls heaviest on the poor. Po\erty, 

 overcrowding, dirty habits, bad ventilation, poor feed- 

 ing, are the causes of tuberculosis, and the causes of 

 its decline have been well summed up in the phrase. 

 The amelioration of social conditions. 



But when all these causes of tuberculosis are taken 

 into consideration, two stand out predominantly among 

 the rest — overcrowding and bad feeding. Overcrowd- 

 ing favours the passage of infection from the sick to 

 the headthy, and bad feeding predisposes the latter to 

 the disease. Thus one cause sows the seed and the 

 other prepares the soil ; for without preparation the 

 seed of tuberculosis wiU not flourish. 



The causes of the decline of tuberculosis are by no 

 means nearing e.xhaustion. Not yet does everybody 

 receive as much food as he can do with, and that of the 

 most suitable kind and quality. How our fathers lived 

 it is difficult to understand. Underfeeding must have 

 been the rule, something like famine common. Pro- 

 gress in agriculture and importation of foreign food 

 has done much, and, compared with what was the case 

 a century ago, our poorer classes live like fighting cocks.' 

 But we have not yet seen the end of the movement, 

 and we must not think that there is no need for further 

 improvement in the feeding of the people. Much also 

 remains to be done in the matter of education, and in 

 health-education, before overcrowding will be extir- 

 pated, and people have learnt not to facilitate the 

 spread of infection from the sick to the healthy. We 

 are therefore not at the end of our resources. Far from 

 it. Much remains to be done on the lines which, there 

 is good reason to think, have brought down the tuber- 

 culosis mortality so wonderfully in the past. 



Doubtless the present high prices and lack of houses 

 are keeping up the adverse conditions begun by the 

 war. But these will yield to time ; and once more 

 we may expect to see the tuberculosis mortality con- 

 tinuing its steady decline until the disease has sunk to 

 the status of an uncommon infection. And this, too, will 

 be only a stage before its complete eradication. Tuber- 

 culosis will go the way of leprosy and become extinct. 



Note. — Further information on this subject may be obtained 

 from a book by the present wTiter entitled The Causes of Tuber - 

 culosis. (Cambridge University Press, 23s. net.) 



' Gilbert White, in a letter to the Hon. Daines Harrington 

 dated 1778, and published in his Naiiiral History of Selborne, 

 gives an interesting account of the progressive improvement 

 of the food of the people, which was evident even at that date, 

 and attributes the disappearance of leprosy ver>' largely to 

 this cause. 



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