[1]

Since the above was written, the first international conference of the Central Committee for the Prevention of Consumption has been held in Berlin. The official report of the English National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis was presented to the Congress, and the encouraging announcement was made that the Corporations of Glasgow, Manchester, and Liverpool had made expectoration in tramcars a punishable offence; and that the Glamorganshire County Council had passed a bye-law providing as penalty for expectoration in public buildings a fine of £5, which enactment had been sanctioned by the Secretary for the Home Department.

[2]

See "Sunshine and Life."

[3]

It is, of course, obvious that other circumstances besides overcrowding have to be reckoned with in considering these statistics. In the one-roomed houses the wages earned by the occupants must have been small, and the amount available for even the bare necessaries of life very limited, that, in fact, they were to be reckoned amongst the class defined by Mr. Rowntree as living in "primary poverty," whose earnings are insufficient to keep the body in a properly nourished condition. Mr. Rowntree has shown by statistics that the height, weight, and general condition of the poor are very much below those of the well-to-do labouring classes.

[4]

In the interior of some bacilli there appears a round or oval body, having a very bright and shining lustre, which is known as a spore, and plays a most important part in the propagation of many kinds of bacilli. These spores are capable of resisting many hardships, which would be immediately fatal to the parent bacilli from which they have sprung.

[5]

Percy Frankland, Our Secret Friends and Foes, 4th edition, p. 188.

[6]

One gramme = 15 grains.

[7]

American sewage, it must be noted, is usually weaker and poorer in bacterial life than that of our country, by reason of the greater amount of water with which it is diluted.

[8]

More recently the snake venom employed by Dr. Calmette for the immunisation of his horses consists of a mixture of colubrine and viperine poisons, the former making up about 80 per cent. of the mixture. A solution of this mixture is heated at about 73° C. for half an hour and then filtered, and injected into horses.

Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.

The cover of this ebook was created by the transcriber and is hereby placed in the public domain.