ARTIFICIAL PROLONGATION OP LIFE 



345 



be regarded as an agent which also predisposes to it. Now, it 

 is obviously of great value to the race as a whole that its tuber- 

 culous members should be eliminated in the early years of life, 

 before they have attained maturity or been able to reproduce 

 themselves. An examination of the Registrar- General's statistics 

 will show, however, that it is precisely the mature members of 

 society — those who have founded new families — who are be- 

 coming more and more exposed to the action of the tubercle 

 bacillus, whereas the juvenile mortality-rate has decreased. 

 Let us glance at the figures given us in the Sixty-third Annual 

 Report for 1900 (p. xxxi). These figures concern only phthisis, 

 or pulmonary tuberculosis. But this form of tuberculosis is 

 by far the most important. Professor Albert Robin, in his 

 report to the Permanent Commission on Tuberculosis in France, 

 discussed in the Congress on Tuberculosis held in Paris in the 

 autumn of 1905, states that a census has been taken in 713 towns 

 in France, in order to establish statistics concerning the amount 

 of tuberculosis. These 713 towns together contain 14,109,520 

 inhabitants. The deaths from tuberculosis are classified as 

 follows : ^ 



It will thus be seen that pulmonary tuberculosis, or phthisis, 

 is by far th« most important form of tubercular disease. We are 

 therefore justified in taking the Registrar-General's figures con- 



* Mortalite par Tvbercvlose en France et en AUemagne. Bapport de 

 M. le^Dr. A. Robin d, la Commission permanente de la Tvbercvlose. 

 Paris, 1905. 



