The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-31

deadly arms about you here in these mountains You may stay weeks in quaint little villages, drive for many miles over the most beautiful mountain boulevards in the world, traverse moun- tain trails deep in rhododendron, lose yourself in day dreams under these changing skies, but through it all you will remember scenes where the great white plague bore down upon you.
 You may have come upon 1t accident ally, little turn in the road, high on mountain pass at some dizzy height, but you know what pale, ghost-like thing is hanging over your pathway-you know that death stalks that way.
 Sometimes it is a little tented city that you see far away, almost hidden in fo- liage. You may be miles away, but a small tent against the sky line fills you with forebodings. There Is no beat of drum, no reveille, but you know that there the last fight Is being made. Per- haps 1t Is taps you are hearing.
 And so 1t is a gloomy and hideous specter that you meet something that chills the blood in your veins, that kills the smile upon the faces of those who look upon 1t; specter that haunts you when you have once gazed where 1t treads: an unconquerable foe that has crossed your path; think that deadens you even before you feel it's grasp; a slow, poisonous thing that chooses you for its companion, and walks beside you to the end.
 Together you sit inside your little tent door, open to the cool night breezes To- gether you see the dawn in these noun tains. and hand in hand you see the sun go down behind the primrose sky. The fogs and msts, the little wild flowers, the tender clinging things at their wild door, the little winged creatures that live about them, the wildness Of the storms, the winds beating upon the little tent door, and within the two hand In hand, waiting for the fog in the throat. the mist in the eye.
 Succumbing Through Contagion. It is an unequal struggle that is waged inside this little tent door, And yet nun | dreds of victims of the great white plague are making 1t courageously, In 1 some instances with temporary relief. The increase of consumption, now the absorbing theme among tubercular spe- | cialists, is resulting In what is called the educational campaign against the spread l of this disease.
 l Only recently in the south the tubercu- ! losis exhibits were held in different cities 1 and it is believed resulted in an awaken I ing to the necessity of precaution. An alarming statement has just been I made that men In all walks of life are
 succumbing to this contagion, and an ex-
 animation of the employees of the street l cleaning department of New York city
 showed that 20 per cent of them were l suffering from tuberculosis contracted
 from inha1ing street dust.
 1 This theory of contagion was illus trated in two notable cases. The late l William Amin, president of the Gridiron l club died from having contracted the disease through being exposed to 1t, and l the late Dr. w. A. Mcdonald of New
 York was victim from having visited | a score or more of hospitals for the treatment of tuberculosis. He gauged tc l a week the date of his death, knowing l so well the processes of tuberculosis. 1 Perhaps those poor unfortunates upon l whom the great white plague lays it's | hand are at least spared the terrible knowledge that the student of tuberculo-
 sis learns in his investigation and which
 must grip him with hideous tenacity | if he falls victim The others fight to the death. never hopeless, yielding first
 one weapon of warfare and then another I until at last there is nothing to fight l with-not even a fighting chance. l But to those who know of its processes, l of its deadly surety, of It's terrific on- 1 slaughts, of its grim victory in the end 1 to them tuberculosis Is not softened by | the quiet dawns that steal into the tent | door, nor by the great peace that en- wraps thk little tent by night. They do 1 not evenvfight sometimes, knowing how
 useless it would be; they know the pro- cesses, and knowing, they no longer walk with a specter, no longer try to out distance 1t. It Is death they are looking upon long before 1t enters the door, and they meet 1t calmly.
 Think of knowing so well the processes of tuberculosis as to be able to gauge your death within one week.
 The TubercuIar lnvalds In Western
 North Carolina.
 For many years Asheville has been req garded as ideal for the treatment of tu- berculosis. Indeed so many tubercular patients come here for treatment that those who are not afflicted have been expressing in recent years a reluctance about visiting in this locality. There has been, however, no falling off in the number of summer tourists and the hotels are thronged every season with visitors from all sections of the country. The villa colonies are large, and all the world is met here in these lovely noun tains.
 The sanitariums for the treatment of tuberculosis are considered to be well equipped, and the modern treatment of this disease is used in the several sani- tarums in Asheville. A specialist is the authority for the statement that at all sanitariums the treatment is largely the same, and that those of Ashevlle vary but little from those In Colorado or Mex leo, or in the Adirondacks.
 The danger of contagion cannot be passed over lightly.
 The proprietors of hotels, and in fact, every one who opens house to summer visitors, realizes this danger and some of the hotels do not take tubercular peo- pie. They enforce this rule strictly. 9th CTS may be less strict, and in such in- stances no sane person would willingly be a guest. aftaFff Na
 
 of Mrs. Wiley Hill has returned to her home in Birmingham.
 Miss Frances Gray Pearce is at home after visiting Virginia Beach and Wash ington.
 Miss Onyx Douglass of Troy is visiting Miss Bessie Miles at her home on Sayre e.t,.