Tuberculosis

It is one of the most fatal diseases that affects men and animals. It is due to a germ called the bacillus of tuberculosis. This germ, however, is not the primary cause for the development of the disease. Wrong environment, unclean air and food are the causes that multiply these germs. Hereditary weaknesses play an important part, but the disease itself is never inherited. Lowered vitality, infection through milk and meat, and careless spitting are in a large measure responsible.

Children of parents who suffer from tuberculosis may grow up into healthy and strong individuals, if the proper conditions are furnished. Tendencies to disease are universally manifest in the weaker structures, and this weaker resisting power is the exact measure of the power inherent in heredity.

Tuberculosis may affect the lungs or manifest itself in different parts of the body, and is known under the following names: Potts disease or curvature of the spine; hip joint disease, when it affects the hip joint; white swelling or knee joint disease; ankle joint disease; lupus or skin disease; scrofula, when it affects the glands of the neck; tuberculous ulceration, when it affects the inside of the intestine; tuberculous peritonitis, when it affects the outside of the intestine; and consumption, when the lungs are involved.

Prevention Of Tuberculosis. The House We Live In

Sunlight is the best known disinfectant. The direct rays of the sun destroy tubercular germs and the majority of other micro-organisms. Plants cannot grow without sunshine. Human beings cannot enjoy health in dark dwelling places, without sulight. The houses we live in should contain a large number of windows and glass doors, so as to permit all rooms to be permeated with sunlight. It is a pity that modern houses, with all their conveniences and sanitary arrangements, have so little provision for proper sterilization by sunlight.

Many new modern houses are provided with a lot of unnecessary closet room, pantries and double stairways, halls and other accessories, which shut up impure air and prevent proper ventilation. Instead of living in large, luxurious houses, our health and comfort could be greatly improved by the investment of more space in artistically constructed gardens. Smaller houses, long and narrow in form, or wide and short, according to the location and size of the lot, could be daily disinfected and sterilized from cellar to attic by the rays of the glorious sun. A building of this kind may consist of two, four, eight, ten or more rooms, with one or three floors, and can offer comfort for one family, or be divided into apartments or flats. A house should be built on porous ground.

A lower floor, with parlor and spare bedrooms, is more easily ventilated and kept clean than a high basement with poor flooring, and no provision for proper airing or the admission of sunlight.

The mother of a family who has to do her own work in a two-story house could save much time and strength by having her kitchen and dining room on the upper floor, with hall and stairway and glass door in the center of the house, which would enable her to attend to the door from above. A house so constructed could easily be provided with porches for sleeping, and a place for the children to play during the morning hours, and in this way relieve the mother of many unnecessary steps.

Large, beautiful gardens call for work which is mixed with brains, while large houses with fashionable accessories call for slavery and compel one woman to become the servant of another woman.

All human beings are born with a pair of arms, which by gradual development enable them to care for their bodies in matters of feeding, dressing, hygiene and comforts. Assistants in the home are required for the child, the sick and the helpless.

Modern inventions relieve us partly of house-cleaning and laundry work, and modern methods of simple feeding and luxurious airing will relieve us from solving the servant problem and prevent diseases that are created by wrong living.