Nathan Smith, in that notable
monograph on "Typhus Fever" (1824), tells how the disease had followed
him in his various migrations, from 1787, when he began to practice, all
through his career, and could he return this year, in some hundred and
forty or one hundred and fifty families of the state he would find
the same miserable tragedy which he had witnessed so often in the
same heedless sacrifice of the young on the altar of ignorance and
incapacity.
TUBERCULOSIS
IN a population of about one million, seventeen hundred persons died of
tuberculosis in this state in the year 1911--a reduction in thirty years
of nearly 50 per cent. A generation has changed completely our outlook
on one of the most terrible scourges of the race. It is simply appalling
to think of the ravages of this disease in civilized communities. Before
the discovery by Robert Koch of the bacillus, we were helpless and
hopeless; in an Oriental fatalism we accepted with folded hands a state
of affairs which use and wont had made bearable. Today, look at the
contrast! We are both helpful and hopeful. Knowing the cause of the
disease, knowing how it is distributed, better able to recognize the
early symptoms, better able to cure a very considerable portion of all
early cases, we have gradually organized an enthusiastic campaign which
is certain to lead to victory.
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