some way
depleted. The women of the family, who are generally confined to the
house, who do not have their lungs reenforced by a continual influx of
fresh air, who are tired and worn out with their household duties, give
themselves an easy prey to the attacks of the bacteria, while the men
and boys, who are more outdoors, who are vigorous and strong, throw off
the attack and are not affected.

It is a significant fact that by examination, dead bodies, so far as was
known, not afflicted with tuberculosis in life, have, to the extent of
60 per cent, been found to have evidences of consumption in their lungs;
that is, the edges of the lungs have been found affected, although the
vitality of the individual was such that the action of the germ had been
stayed before any serious injury was done. Most of us, at one time or
another, have had, unknowingly, mild cases of consumption. It would be
strange, indeed, if we did not, in view of all the tuberculous infection
flying around in the air. But most of us are able to successfully combat
the disease, so that the germs are destroyed before they are able to
affect the entire body.

The other part of prevention consists in building up and holding up the
vitality of the individual to a point where the vital forces can
successfully oppose the attacks of the germs. Probably the decrease in
the number of cases of consumption in the last quarter of a century has
been due quite as much to the improved sanitary conditions of living,
whereby the germs have been unable to secure a foothold in the
individual, as to any precautionary measures taken against the germ
itself.

_Precautions by the consumptive._

But the chief factor in the future restriction of the disease, as in the
past, must be the disinfection of the germs immediately after they are
thrown off from the consumptive patient, and it is well worth while to
emphasize just what the consumptive should do or have done for him in
order that he may not be responsible for the further spread of the
disease. In the first place, when he spits, he must appreciate and act
on the fact that the sputum is alive with consumptive germs, each one of
which may possibly transmit the disease to whoever may come in contact
with it. The patient must keep in mind continually that this sputum is
poison, a deadly poison, and that it is his duty to see that every
particle of it is disinfected or destroyed by one of the methods already
indicated. He ma