248 TUBERCULOSIS. 



well known scientist called that century the century of 

 natural history, because such giant steps had been taken 

 in it . . . . what do we thiik today of those giant 

 steps ? And who can tell us what the people of the com- 

 ing century will say concerning onr present knowledge? 



APRIL 23, 1895— TENTH REGULAR MEETING. 



Chairman Burgess presiding, and forty members and 

 guests present. Dr. J. W. Poucher presented the 

 following paper on 



TUBERCULOSIS. 



It almost seems as if I ought to offer an apology for 

 coming before this learned institute to-night with so old 

 and worn a subject as coiisumption, a subject wiili whicii 

 you are all well acquainted and still a subject of which we 

 are all still far too ignorant. All other contagious dis- 

 eases are kept at arms' length. Small pox, diphtheria, 

 scarlet fever and even cases of measles are rigidly kept 

 under quarantine and carefully avoided by all; but this 

 arcli ent-my of the human race, which lurks everywhere 

 around us, is scarcely dreaded at all, and by the vast ma- 

 jority not even known as a contagious disease, to be 

 feared and shunned as more fearful and deadly than all 

 others put together. Tubercle in its various forms at 

 the present day carries off annually about 110,000 per- 

 sons in the United States alone, about one-seventh of all 

 who die. At the ages between 15 and 45, the most use- 

 ful stages of human existence, it kills more than one- 

 third of the people who die, and between the ages of 15 

 and 35 nearly one-half. Moreover, its prolonged and 

 painful course prevents its victims from earning a liveli- 

 hood. Its habit of seizing upon the flower of the popu- 

 lation; its slow, but in the majority of cases almost cer- 

 tain progress toward death; the very distressing weakness 



