BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. 
91 
It was a well-recognized principle with the Greeks that men 
ought to select their wives with a view to the health and vigor 
of their children. In Sparta, also, a form of selection was fol¬ 
lowed, for it was enacted that all children should be examined 
shortly after birth ; the well formed and vigorous being pre¬ 
served, the others left to perish. The well-known case of the 
Prussian grenadiers is another example of methodical selection, 
for it is asserted that many tall men were reared in the villages 
inhabited by the grenadiers and their tall wives. 
Statistics show that human phthisis and other tuberculous 
diseases, in which are grouped scrofula, tabes mesenterica, tuber¬ 
culous meningitis and consumption of the bowels, have de¬ 
creased since i860, and we are beginning to realize the fact that 
this decrease in the mortality from phthisis points to the ameli¬ 
orating influence of healthier and better ventilated homes ; more 
wholesome feeding and a higher standard of domestic hygiene ; 
general comfort and prosperity enjoyed especially by the indus¬ 
trial classes. 
Edmund A. Parkes, the founder of modern hygiene, a man 
whose magnificent work has startled us by its simplicity and 
yet completeness, and who has contributed more to the saving 
of life than words can express, defines hygiene as the art of pre¬ 
serving health. 
“ It aims at rendering growth more perfect, decay less rapid, 
life more vigorous, death more remote: and tells us that if we 
had a perfect knowledge of the laws of life, and could practically 
apply this knowledge in a perfect system of hygienic rules, 
disease would be impossible.” In dealing with this subject, we 
have to consider with regard to animals, the air they breathe, 
the water they drink, the food they are fed on, the exercise and 
labor they undergo, and the prevention and eradication of epi¬ 
zootic diseases. Our greatest hygienic triumphs have been won 
where our advice has been assisted by law. Up to a certain 
point a man is at liberty to do what he likes with his own prop¬ 
erty ; the law, except in the case of certain diseases, cannot inter¬ 
fere, and we possess no power of enforcing hygiene ; but the 
