CONGRESS ON TUBERCULOSIS. 
453 
ing of special hospitals for consumptives and the better utiliza¬ 
tion of the already existing hospitals for the lodging of con¬ 
sumptives as the most important measure in the combating of 
tuberculosis, and its execution opens a wide field of activity to 
the state, to municipalities, and to private benevolence. There 
are many people who possess great wealth, and would willingly 
give of their superfluity for the benefit of their poor and heavily 
afflicted fellow creatures, but do not know how to do this in a 
judicious manner. Here is an opportunity for them to render a 
real and lasting service by founding consumption hospitals, or 
purchasing the right to have a certain number of consumptive 
patients maintained in special wards of other hospitals free of 
expense. 
As, however, unfortunately, the aid of the state, the muni¬ 
cipalities, and rich benefactors will probably not be forthcoming 
for a long time yet, we must for the present resort to other 
measures that may pave the way for the main measure just re¬ 
ferred to, and serve as a supplement and temporary substitute 
for it. 
Among such measures I regard obligatory notification as 
specially valuable. In the combating of all infectious diseases it 
has proved indispensable as a means of obtaining certain knowl¬ 
edge as to their state, especially their dissemination, their in¬ 
crease and decrease. In the conflict with tuberculosis also we 
cannot dispense with obligatory notification ; we need it not 
only in order to inform ourselves as to the dissemination of this 
disease, but mainly in order to learn where help and instruction 
can be given, and especially where the disinfection which is so 
urgently necessary when consumptives die or change their resi¬ 
dences has to be effected. Fortunately it is not at all necessary 
to notify all cases of tuberculosis, nor even all cases of consump¬ 
tion, but only those that, owing to the domestic conditions, are 
sources of danger to the people about them. Such limited 
notification has already been introduced in various places, in 
Norway, for instance, by a special law, in Saxony by a minister¬ 
ial degree, in New York and in several American towns, which 
have followed its example. In New York, where notification was 
optional at first and was afterwards made obligatory, it has 
proved eminently useful. It has thus been proved that the evils 
which it used to be feared the introduction of notification for 
tuberculosis would bring about need not occur, and it is de¬ 
voutly to be wished that the examples I have named may very 
soon excite emulation everywhere. 
