The era of the battle between man and tuberculosis is ancient indeed, and the war between them is still a fierce, seesawing struggle; yet we hope that final victory will take man's side—indeed we are all but confident that he will come out of the battle triumphant, his banner flying...

The struggle between them has been, and remains, violent and exhausting; but it did not take on an organized, fruitful, scientific form until the great German man of science discovered the tubercu-losis germ in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-two. Yes, from that time—from that discovery so far-reaching in its effect on the field of medicine and science—seri-ous resistance to tuberculosis began, and the mounting of fierce campaigns to cut off its line and root it out of the human family was set on foot..

And if medicine has not yet reached its goal, despite the mighty researches that proceed without interruption, that is because this dreadful enemy—strong of temper, hard to handle—has slipped into our various ranks and seeped into the very heart of our society; so that overcoming it, matters standing thus, cannot be accomplished by one particular class of the nation, but requires close, joint cooperation among all classes, and demands that the different forces in the social body join hands. However that may be, the signs of victory—despite the mounting difficulties and the ruggedness of the paths—are a present reality worthy to encourage us and to whet our resolve.

He was right who called tuber-

culosis the White Plague, before its germ was discovered and its obscurities understood; for it used to come in terrifying shapes, sweeping away thousands, planting terror in hearts and undermining the edifice of civilizations.

Nor would we, in our present age, be witnessing the first signs of triumph in our contest with this deadly disease had not—through the effectiveness of our modern civilization—the level of nutrition risen, the standard of living improved, and concern for matters of health, public and private, become one of the pillars of civilization and social progress.

It has become clear from the precise scientific statistics carried out in several countries, such as the United States and others, that the death rate from tuber-culosis decreased from the year nineteen hundred to the year nineteen hundred and forty—that is, within forty years—by nearly seventy-five percent.

It is worth mentioning that the fight against tuberculosis, and deep study of its problems, was the first impulse toward cooperation between the public and medicine in the field of public health. And it was the first occasion on which science demonstrated that it could overcome diseases not by vaccination and isolation alone, but also by way of comprehensive enlightenment, through spreading knowledge among the different classes of the people. The more learning is made general and culture strengthened, the more fruitful are medicine's benefits and the more general its results.

There is no doubt that work against one disease leads, at

times, to the discovery of other diseases—which stirs in us enthu-siasm and energy, and makes us feel the exhilaration of the sin-cere fighter whose endeavors are crowned with victory. Likewise the health measures we employ to root out one disease, or to halt its spread and diffusion, open the way for us at the same time to fortify ourselves against several diseases. Our attention, for example, to the cleanliness of water, vegetables, and fruit, to ward off the typhoid fevers, serves us also in avoiding the dysenteric diseases, in pre-venting the breeding of intestinal worms of all their kinds, and in protecting us from the danger of the deadly epidemics that reach us by way of food and drink, such as yellow fever, cholera, and other ills besides.

Medical research and experiment are in constant expansion and continuous unfolding, and the valuable discoveries are nothing but the fruit of that research and experiment. Thus the discovery of the vaccine, or protective serum, against infection by certain diseases has strengthened the hope that other sera can be prepared to protect against all manner of infec-tions. And we have witnessed the great forward development that has taken place in recent years: the epidemics that in the past wrought terrible slaughter among men, effacing the landmarks of civ-ilizations and disfiguring the fields of building, art, and progress, have dwindled—indeed have all but died out and vanished—and the credit for that goes to the successive efforts exerted by the masters of medicine and science, aiming at the good of all humanity by raising the level of health, private and public.

In America, for example, the disease of diphtheria has almost become a thing of the past, and the two diseases typhoid and malaria have become rarities there. Nor