SCIENCE 



[X. S. Vol. XXX. No. 757 



alike, may be aroused to serve in a cam- 

 paign whose purpose is not to destroy life 

 but to save it. 



Some of our colleges are teaching by ex- 

 ample the prophylaxis of the disease in the 

 way of bacterial cleanliness. At Dart- 

 mouth the class rooms, dormitories and 

 chapel are examined every two weeks by 

 the exposure of gelatine plates, and when 

 the number of bacteria which fall on these 

 plates during ten minutes exceeds forty, 

 the rooms are thoroughly disinfected with 

 formaldehyde. Since the adoption of the 

 wholesale method of disinfection the sick- 

 ness among the students has been very 

 markedly reduced, especially those mild 

 forms of disease such as pharyngitis, tonsil- 

 itis, measles and ordinary colds. In a 

 number of schools immediate attention is 

 given to any suspicious cases of incipient 

 tuberculosis. Colleges whose class rooms 

 are well ventilated, which occasionally test 

 them for the proportion of carbon dioxide 

 present, teach the value of fresh air in the 

 most emphatic way. And the schools 

 whose aim is not the making of a few over- 

 specialized athletes, but rather the physical 

 well being, the maximum efficiency of all 

 their students, inspire an ideal of vigorous 

 health which translated into life becomes 

 the best possible prophylaxis against tu- 

 berculosis. 



As a matter of education, as well as for 

 stronger reasons, a number of colleges have 

 prohibited the rooming of students in 

 families afflicted with tuberculosis and in 

 houses where the occurrence of such cases 

 has not been followed with disinfection. 

 "Where there are state or municipal regu- 

 lations requiring registration and super- 

 vision of cases and prompt disinfection of 

 houses after death or removal, and where 

 these rules are rigidly enforced, there may 

 be little need of college rules. But the 

 replies to our questionnaire indicate that 



such municipal or state regulations obtain 

 in less than half of college towns and in a 

 still smaller number are they effectively 

 enforced. Apparently in the majority of 

 our higher schools no control is exercised 

 on this vital matter. The young student 

 comes to the college town a stranger, utterly 

 ignorant of the sanitary conditions of the 

 houses of the town among which he is to 

 choose his home. Very possibly he is igno- 

 rant of the causes of tuberculosis and sees 

 no danger in joining a family infected with 

 it. He is thus allowed to place his life in 

 hazard without even a remonstrance from 

 those who are supposed to have his physical 

 well being in their charge and who with no 

 great difficulty can usually know of the 

 special places which form the ambushes of 

 the disease. The reason why such regula- 

 tions are not more widely made is in part 

 the general exemption of college students 

 from serious diseases. But before this 

 reason is held sufficient, an examination 

 should be made into the mortality from 

 tuberculosis of the younger alumni, a mor- 

 tality which is often high, and which in 

 some instances may possibly be found sig- 

 nificant of conditions in the environment 

 of the college. The following from a cor- 

 respondent in one of the large universities 

 of the middle west may represent the atti- 

 tude of many schools: 



I believe that there are no faculty regulations 

 at the present time, but the committee on hygiene 

 has considered the matter and expects to inaugu- 

 rate an active campaign in regard to this with the 

 next school year. There has been so little trouble 

 of this sort among university students that the 

 need has not seemed urgent heretofore, but as 

 matter of education I am personally very strongly 

 in favor of it. 



Among the matters which make for the 

 education of the student as to tuberculosis 

 is the use of the tuberculin test with the 

 dairy cattle kept by agricultural colleges 

 and by a number of schools for the use of 



