DUST AND ITS DANGERS. 6 1 



from consumption of the lungs may be expector- 

 ating every day myriads of living and virulent 

 tubercle bacilli, and that the life and virulence 

 of these bacilli are not destroyed by prolonged 

 drying. 



Now leaving this fact for a moment, let us 

 see how common a disease consumption or 

 tuberculosis is after all. 



From one seventh to one fourth of all the 

 people who die are carried off, most of them 

 prematurely, by this disease. In Europe about 

 one million persons die each year from con- 

 sumption, that is about 3,000 every day. In the 

 United States in the year 1880, that is, the 

 year of the last census, over 91,000 persons 

 fell victims to this disease, and the average age 

 at death of these persons was thirty-seven. 

 Let him who has watched the progress of this 

 insidious disease in but a single case, imagine 

 if he can the misery and pain which these fig- 

 ures represent. 



The disease is considerably less frequent in 

 some regions and countries than in others, but 

 everywhere where men live together in large 

 numbers, or live under bad sanitary conditions 



