ESSE 
I, ae es 
340 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Noy., 1898. 
often exposed to inbreathe the so-called Koch’s bacilli. True, most of the 
bacilli expectorated by consumptives are mere corpses; but a patient expec- 
torates millions of them in a day, and amongst them there are sure to be some 
virulent ones. Some recent investigations seem to prove that even when dead 
the bacilli remain poisonous, although being, of course, deprived of the faculty 
of multiplying. Post-mortem examinations show that about one-third of the 
examined corpses bear more or less cured traces of tuberculous lesions. Many 
of those who were so temporarily attacked, and then cured, never suspected it. 
Those who died from it amount to about only one-seventh of all examined 
corpses. 
y If one-third of the examined corpses bear traces of tuberculosis, and onl 
one-seventh of the deaths were cansed by it, it necessarily follows that four- 
sevenths of the persons affected with tuberculous consumption get cured of it, 
so that the disease is not necessarily fatal, as is thought by many people. 
Hereditary or acquired bacilli develop and multiply in inverse ratio to the 
general state of the body’s health. All that weakens the body (think of that 
young men!) renders it more liable to consumption. General weakness, 
precocious depravity, vicious habits, exhaustion from disease, or, for women, 
from frequent confinements, habitual drunkenness, alcoholism, misfortunes, 
sorrows, and misery are all predisposing causes. The characteristics of poverty 
- are hunger and filth, which weaken the body, and render it liable to contract 
all infectious diseases, such as typhoid fever, cholera, and tuberculosis. 
Improved water supplies, wide airy streets, the pulling down of old 
unhealthy buildings, and other similar works, undertaken in many cities with 
a view to fight typhoid fever, have resulted in a diminution of tuberculosis as 
well. A foul air is the kind of uncleanliness most likely to occasion tuber- 
culosis. That explains why all beings of sedentary confined habits are the 
most subject to it; such, for instance, as the high-lite lady, the office clerk, the 
prisoner in his cell, the lion and monkey in their cages, as well as the cow 
kept ina stable. It is eminently a prisoner’s disease. A man condemned to 
ten years has fifty chances in 100 to die from tuberculous consumption. 
As showing the influence of the profession on the spread of the disease, 
Dr. Sonderegger quotes the following table compiled by Kummer :— 
From 1879 to 1882, on 1,090 deaths from tuberculosis— 
Railway employees furnished 12°57 | Bootmakers ... cab oxy | PAKEB} 
Farmers... ae ot tex) VERIO 9 oo! Butchers en ot see 819%; 
Weavers in factories ... se. 21°42 Coopers... iss ah ee OZISO 
Doctors ... a ores ty | PPS Bakers ... ia oY ao BHR! 
Carpenters He wn we. 24°84 Watchmakers ... = coo BES IE!) 
Engineers ay or .. 20°12 Printers... ag oon .. 36°46 
Publicans ah att P2580 Teachers fe Mt ... 39°40 
Millers ... we ery: we. «27°01 Stonehewers ... Ss ws 68°75 
Chemists it 27°74 | 
I cannot help thinking that a table giving the ratio of deaths per 1,000 
inhabitants engaged in one of the above professions would change considerably 
the order in which those professions are placed in this table. 
CURE. 
Once we are acquainted with the predisposing and occasioning causes of 
tuberculous consumption, it can be guarded against as well as any other 
disease, if, notwithstanding that it has declared itself, we still can oppose to 
it powerful and efficacious therapeutics. 
When a farmer happens to be possessed of a land swampy and full of 
weeds, he does not attempt to pull out these latter one by one. He drains 
and manures his Jand—so says Dr. Sonderegger—to improve it, and thus 
modify the conditions of vegetation. We proceed in the same way in our 
fight against tuberculous consumption. We try to improve the soil; I mean 
the patient. We make him sanguineous, strong, and fat by providing him 
with good food and a healthy hygiene. 
