OCTOBER 8 i 



whose whole soul was bent on saving her children from 

 the disease of which their father died, that she brought 

 us up on the lines of that belief, and kept us from every- 

 one whom she in any way suspected of being consumptive, 

 even when their complaint may have been but a constitu- 

 tional cough. 



Perhaps this training is what has made me somewhat 

 sceptical about the medical science of any day being 

 absolutely conclusive. I sometimes think that the im- 

 plicit faith that people are apt to place in doctors may be 

 injurious to the community, and that experience and 

 quackery sometimes turn out to be scientifically truer than 

 the medical theory of the hour. Shocking as many will 

 think the suggestion, I believe this may eventually prove 

 to be the case even with regard to vaccination as a 

 necessary preventive against small-pox epidemics, the 

 great decrease of which may have been effected by many 

 other circumstances. The itch, scurvy, and leprosy have 

 practically also disappeared in England with improved 

 food and cleanliness. Nowadays why should not a case 

 of small-pox be stamped out as the plague was this year in 

 Vienna ? Before Jenner's great discovery, even the most 

 primitive methods of preventing infection were unknown. 

 It is only within the last twenty years that these have 

 been brought to anything like perfection, and only in 

 the last ten years with regard to crowded localities. 



To return to tuberculosis. In spite of TyndalTs 

 wonderfully clear, instructive, and interesting letters to 

 the ' Times,' published more than twenty years ago, and 

 which explained most thoroughly the infectiousness of 

 consumption, the public have remained curiously ignorant 

 on the subject. As an illustration of this, a sad case 

 occurred this year not far from here. A signalman who 

 was mortally ill of consumption remained at his work in 

 his signal-box on the line as long as it was possible for 



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