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THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSUMPTION.

By Dr. J.S. CHRISTISON, Chicago.


A proclamation by an eminent physician that he has discovered a
specific cure for consumption in its most prevalent and insidious
form, known as tuberculosis, might well create a deep and universal
interest, since there are comparatively few of us that do not have
this deadly enemy within the limits of our cousin kinship. And if
German slaughter house statistics are to be taken as representative,
no less than ten per cent. of our domesticated horned cattle are a
prey to the same disease, though seldom discovered during life. This
fact would suggest that tubercular consumption is still more prevalent
in the human family than has yet been supposed, and that many carry it
under the cover of other maladies.

But unfortunately for any hope for a specific remedy, the
preponderance of evidence points to the fact that consumption is much
more a product of individual habits and social and climatical
conditions than a resultant of any one agency. Indeed, the causative
evils may vary not only in their degree, but also in their number and
order of action in the period of its evolution.

If it were hereditary in the sense that it is transmitted by the blood