The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1911-08-03

of other diseases
that drag men
down to death, is
no respector of rank or wealth. Cough
ed, sneezed, spat and breathed into the
air in inconceivable billions and myriads
of billions, and swept by the winds in
to every home in the land, or intro
duced into the bodies of men and wom
en- by more subtle ways and contacts,
the disease germ has at it's mercy
every one of us who is not naturally
immune to it's activities. Public sani-
tation, however strict, can do nothing
to prevent the spread of tuberculosis
or pneumonia, diphtheria or scarlet
fever, influenza or tetanus. to say moth
ing of numerous other fell malignan.
cies the causes of which are at present
unknown.
An attempt to stamp out or even to
reduce the ravages Of the great
white plague" by public sanitation are
as hopelessly feeble, and quite as vain,
as the loud beating of tomtoms by
horde OF African savages to brighten
away an eclipse of the sun. Our con-
crosses for the prevention of tubercu-
losis are about as helpful as would be
a congress called for the purpose Of
securing good weather for crops.
Time, money and much talk would be
saved by not holding them at all. No
body knows the truth of this assertion
better than the men who are doing the
really scientific work in this line-the
aristocrats of laboratory research. OF
the delegates to tuberculosis con-
gress very few know anything worthy
of mention about the scientific part of
the subject, and these competent few
have only languid interest in popular
anti-spit crusades, fresh air cures and
other helpless devices of that kind.
They are deeply interested, however,
In the experimental work going for
ward in certain laboratories of Eu-
rope.
1t is amusing to see the health de-
partments of our large cities urging
the citizen not to spit on the sidewalk,
when that same citizen (and perhaps
the health officer himself) coughs,
sneezes, snorts and talks germs by the
billion right into the circumambient
air or into the faces of his fellow citi-
zens. And this same citizen straight
way expectorates ad libitum in the
roadway, there to mingle his particular
germs with tetanus and other organ
isms that foregather by the myriad in
the dirt-dirt In which the bacteriolo-
gist can find most any old germ" he
has a mind for.
These methods of prevention are fu-
tile on their face. Why refrain from
splitting on the sidewalk, or anywhere
else, when we carry into our homes in
the dirt on the soles of our boots
enough bacteria to people newly ere.
ated planet? 1t reminds one of the
soldiers who, when ordered to storm a
fertilization, were afraid that the bull
let's Of the garrison would hit their fin
gers as they were climbing over the
walls. Even the physician who gets
only slight glimpse while at school
of that incomprehensible thing, the
animal body, should know that the
most powerful disinfection is at best
but makeshift
Thus far in the history Of the human
immunizer Of men to disease. A man
is naturally immune to a disease when
his body naturally manufactures sub
stance the presence of which in the
body neutralizes the poisons produced
by the multiplication of bacteria in the
body.
For ages in the past man has been
surmounting disease after disease
climbing up the mountain ON the sum
be immune to fatal disease of every
kind. Countless billions of human
lives have been the price paid for this
progress; countless billions, who, moi
naturally immune to these diseases
have been swept away before the age
at which they could reproduce theil
susceptibilities in their children. Onl,
those who were naturally immune have
survived, and these have passed dowl
their Immunity to their offspring. Ii
measles, that classic disease of child
hood, we have one of those ancien
maladies not yet conquered by man
and for the simple reason that it il
seldom fatal. Were measles invariabl.
mcrtal it had been wiped out long
long ego.
When nature wipes out a diseas
rom among men she does it in one o
two ways: ethe. by destroying
through the disease itself all non-in
mune individuals while children-thu
safeguarding posterity; or by perms
nent'y immunizing non.immune ind
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