218 BACTERIOLOGY 



put a check upon indefinite extension of the disease. It is significant 

 that a high degree of success apparently attends the enthusiastic and 

 persistent application of any one of the measures instanced. 



While malaria, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis are to-day fairly in 

 the field of view of public hygiene, such is not the case with a host of 

 other maladies. A beginning is made here and there, but the vast 

 majority of the diseases that affect mankind still lack an intelligent 

 and organized opposition. This is partly because of insufficient know- 

 ledge. At the present time the apparent increase in pneumonia pre- 

 sents an imperative field for research. It seems unlikely that the 

 available modes of attacking this disease are to be exhausted with 

 attempts to improve individual prophylaxis. A clear understanding 

 of the tangled web of statistical, climatic, racial, bacteriologic , and 

 hygienic questions that environ this urgent problem of public hygiene 

 is likely to come only through renewed investigation of the phe- 

 nomena. If it is true, as some conjecture on what seems insufficient 

 evidence, that the virulence of the pneumococcus is increasing, what 

 is the bacteriologic strategy suited to the emergency? Or if it turn 

 out that an increase in the number of victims to pneumonia is 

 largely made up of those who have escaped an early death from 

 tuberculosis, what procedure is indicated? 



We cannot always take refuge from the consequences of inaction 

 under the plea of ignorance. There are few, if any, instances in which 

 public hygiene is utilizing to the full the knowledge that it might pos- 

 sess. Some responsibility rests upon those who are prosecuting bac- 

 teriologic studies to see that the bearings of their investigations are 

 not overlooked or neglected by those who are constituted the guard- 

 ians of the public health. There is here no question of the sordid 

 self-interest or commercial exploitation sometimes miscalled "prac- 

 tical application." In the long run the saving of life may play into 

 the hands of the idealist. If John Keats had not died of pulmonary 

 tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five, the modern world would be 

 a different place for many persons. It is not possible to estimate the 

 loss to literature, science, and art since the dawn of intellectual life 

 which must be laid at the door of the infectious diseases. The relations 

 of bacteriology to public hygiene, if properly appreciated and culti- 

 vated, will lead to an improvement in the conditions of life which will 

 enhance both the ideal and material welfare of the race, and will give 

 greater assurance that each man shall complete his span of life and 

 be able to do the work that is in him. 



