Present and Prospective 205 



antitoxic serum to extirpate the bacillus in it. 

 Bacilli, like the poor, we shall doubtless always 

 have with us ; nor can we ever hope to keep 

 them out of the body, as surgeons once fondly 

 hoped to do with their carbolic sprays, and food 

 sterilizers would fain do now, notwithstanding 

 that they may thereby destroy one half the nutri- 

 tive value of the food ; that a recent observer has 

 isolated more than a hundred different kinds of 

 bacilli in the juices and deposits of the human 

 mouth ; and that another observer has found in 

 the healthy intestine a large number of organisms 

 intermediate in character between the typical 

 colon bacillus and the typhoid bacillus. 



Here, I think, one may justly regret a want of 

 sobriety in some medical statements on the popular 

 platform, in consequence of which the public has 

 jumped to the conclusion that because the bacillus 

 has been discovered phthisis is curable, the old 

 notion of its heredity erroneous, the objection to 

 phthisical marriages obsolete, and the right thing 

 to do forthwith to dot the land freely with sana- 

 toriums and so gain an immense addition to the 

 life-capital of the nation. But is phthisis so very 

 curable in these special hospitals, nowise endued 

 with any special grace, I imagine, by reason of 

 their being called sanatoriums ? Adequate sta- 

 tistics are not yet available, but, thus far, the 

 modest outcome of experience seems to be that 

 many patients who are sent in the early stage of 

 the disease recover, if they are sent soon enough 



