tead of nature being able to cure the consumptive unaided, as a
matter of fact she has neither the ability nor the inclination to do
anything of the sort. There is no class of patients whose recovery
depends more absolutely upon a most careful and intelligent study and
regulation of their diet, of every detail of their life throughout the
entire twenty-four hours, and of the most careful adjustment of air,
food, heat, cold, clothing, exercise, recreation, by the combined forces
of sanitarian, nurse, and physician. So that, instead of feeling that
only by reverting to savagery can consumption be prevented, we have no
hesitation in saying that it is _only under civilization, and
civilization of the highest type, that we have any reasonable prospect
of cure_.

Finally, we are getting over our misgivings as to the intentions of the
hereditary brigade. It is certainly not our enemy, and may probably turn
out to be one of our best friends.

Our first sidelight on this question came in rather a surprising manner.
It was taken for granted, almost as axiomatic, that if the conditions of
savage life were such as to discourage, if not prevent, tuberculosis,
certainly, then, the race which had been exposed to these conditions for
countless generations would have a high degree of resisting power to the
disease. But what an awakening was in store for us! No sooner did the
army surgeon and medical missionary settle down in the wake of that
extraordinary world-movement of Teutonic unrest, which has resulted in
the colonization of half the globe within the past two or three hundred
years, than it was discovered that, although the hunting or nomad savage
had not developed tuberculosis, and the disease was emphatically born of
civilization, yet the moment that these healthy and vigorous children of
nature were exposed to its infection, instead of showing the high degree
of resisting power that might be expected, they died before it like
sheep.

From all over the world--from the Indians of our Western plains, the
negroes of our Southern States, the islanders of Polynesia, New Zealand,
Hawaii, Samoa--came reports of tribes practically wiped out of existence
by the "White Plague" of civilization. To-day the death-rate from
tuberculosis among our Indian wards is from _three to six times_ that of
the surrounding white populations. The negro population of the Southern
States has nearly three times the death-rate of the white populations of
t