But when you remember that consumption destroys a hundred and fifty thousand lives every year in this country alone, and that it is estimated that every human life is worth at least three thousand dollars to the community, you will see at once that consumption costs us in deaths alone, four hundred and fifty million dollars a year! And when you further remember that each person who dies has usually been sick from two to three years, and that two-thirds of such persons are workers, or heads of families, and that tens of thousands of other persons who do not die of it, have been disabled for months and damaged or crippled for life by it, you can readily see what an enormous sum we could well afford to pay in order to stamp it out entirely. One of the most important safeguards against the disease is the law that prevents spitting in public places. Not only the germs of consumption, but those of pneumonia, colds, catarrhs, diphtheria, and other diseases, can be spread by spitting. The habit is not only dangerous, but disgusting, unnecessary, and vulgar, so that most cities and many states have now passed laws prohibiting spitting in public places, under penalty of fine and imprisonment. [Illustration: A REPORT-FORM FROM A HEALTH DEPARTMENT LABORATORY In a suspected case, the physician sends a specimen of the sputum to the Laboratory to be tested, and receives a reply according to the result of the test. The form is filled in with the name of the patient and signed by the Director of the Laboratory.] The next best safeguard is plenty of fresh air and sunlight in every room of the house. These things are doubly helpful, both because they increase the vigor and resisting power of those who occupy the rooms and might catch the disease, and because direct sunlight, and even bright daylight, will rapidly kill the bacilli when it can get directly at them. How great is the actual risk of infection in crowded, ill-ventilated houses is well shown by the reports of the tuberculosis dispensaries of New York and other large cities. Whenever a patient comes in with tuberculosis, they send a visiting nurse to his home, to show him how best to ventilate his rooms, and to bring in all the other members of the family to the dispensary for examination. No less than from _one-fourth to one-half_ of the children in these families are found to be already infected with tuberculosis. The places where we look for our new cases of tuberculosis now are in the same rooms or houses with old ones. A careful consumptive is no source of danger; but alas, not more than one in three are of that character. [Illustration: A SIGN THAT OUGHT NOT TO BE NECESSARY But, being necessary, it should be strictly respected and obeyed.]