SERUM THERAPEUTICS UN - RESPECT TO TUBERCULOSIS. 797 
Nervous depression and general relaxation characterise them ; a 
sudden increase of moisture in the atmosphere lessens the moisture 
given off by the skin and lungs, with the result that blood is driven to 
the interior. If hemorrhage is taking place at the time, it will of course 
be increased; rest is out of the question; the vital processes are 
lowered. A rapid fall in temperature will have the same effect. Can 
we wonder that these girls become pale and languid and of poor 
physique? One male teacher described the system as fairly taking 
away the girl’s womanhood. Can we contemplate with satisfaction 
the far-reaching effect upon the unborn children, who will owe 
their physical degradation to the slavery imposed on their maternal 
predecessors ? 
I have endeavoured to show that the tropics have an injurious 
effect upon adult Europeans — that their children develop into a more 
nervous, slighter, and less enduring type. I claim, then, that school 
regulations which are not specially prepared for them, but are applic- 
able in temperate countries, are hurtful to the North Queensland boy 
and girl, and therefore to their successors. 
The age limit, the design of the building, the time-table, the 
standard of proficiency, the period for holding the annual examinations, 
all require serious attention from the authorities in Brisbane. 
3.— THE PROMISE OF SERUM THERAPEUTICS IN RESPECT 
TO TUBERCULOSIS. 
By J. SIDNEY HUNT , Eng,, Hughenden , North Queensland . 
Since the discovery of the famous tubercle bacillus by Koch in 
1882, there is probably no condition of disease which has been the 
subject of greater interest to the world at large, and to the scientific 
section of it in particular, than that to which this bacillus gives rise. 
This interest is necessitated by the vast importance, the wide incidence, 
the protean manifestations, and the intractable nature of those morbid 
processes which result from infection by the tubercle bacillus, and 
which, by the recognition of this organism, we are now able to group 
together under the common name of tuberculosis. We now know that 
the one essential factor in tubercular processes, whether those pro- 
cesses occur in the human being under the name of “phthisis,” or in 
the skin as “lupus,” or in the glands and joints as “scrofula,” or 
appear as multiple tumours on the serous membranes of beasts, or as 
abscesses in the necks of pigs or in the udders of cows, or as ulcers in 
the throats of fowls, or in a hundred other forms, is the invariable 
presence of the specific bacillus. True, the tubercle bacillus does not 
under all circumstances present precisely the same morphological 
appearances ; but its slight modifications are only such as may reason- 
ably be attributed to variations in the soil in which it grows, as, for 
instance, in the case of man, of cattle, or of fowls. Essentially it is the 
same bacillus for all; it has the same peculiar staining reactions, the 
same kind of growth in artificial cultivation, produces in all the same 
kind of destructive lesions, and, above all, is intercommunicable 
between man and various animals, and between animals of various 
kinds. Hence the efforts to combat tuberculosis have of late years 
