ible for the physician to discover
anything wrong in the lungs at the commencement of consumption. But,
generally, examination either of the lungs or of the sputum will
decide the matter, one or both giving positive information.

The use of the X-rays in the hands of some experts sometimes reveals
the presence of consumption before it is possible to detect it by any
other method. There is also a substance called tuberculin, which, when
injected under the skin in suspected cases of consumption causes a
rise of temperature in persons suffering from the disease, but has no
effect on the healthy. This method is that commonly applied in testing
cattle for tuberculosis. As the results of tuberculin injection in the
consumptive are something like an attack of _grippe_, and as
tuberculin is not wholly devoid of danger to these patients, this test
should be reserved to the last, and is only to be used by a physician.

=Treatment.=--There is no special remedy at our disposal which will
destroy or even hinder the growth of the germs of tuberculosis in the
lungs. Our endeavors must consist in improving the patient's strength,
weight, and vital resistance to the germs by proper feeding, and by
means of a constant out-of-door life. The ideal conditions for
out-of-door existence are pure air and the largest number of sunshiny
days in the year. Dryness and an even temperature, and an elevation of
from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, are often serviceable, but not necessarily
successful.

When it is impossible for the patient to leave his home he should
remain out of doors all hours of bright days, ten to twelve hours
daily in summer, six to eight hours in winter without regard to
temperature, and should sleep on a porch or on the roof, if possible.
In the Adirondacks, patients sit on verandas with perfect comfort
while the thermometer is at ten degrees below zero. A patient (a
physician) in a Massachusetts sanitarium has arranged a shelf,
protected at the sides, along the outside of a window, on which his
pillow rests at night, while he sleeps with his head out of doors and
his body in bed in a room inside. If it becomes stormy he retires
within and closes the window. If the temperature ranges above 100 deg. F.
patients should rest in bed or on a couch in the open air, but, if
below this, patients may exercise. A steamer chair set inside of a
padded, wicker bath chair, from which the seat has been removed, makes
a convenient protected arrangem