=Tuberculosis.--=What is really inherited is a constitutional susceptibility to this particular germ. While almost any individual may contract tuberculosis when in a state of depressed vitality, or under stress of adverse surroundings, there is no doubt that certain families are more easily infected than others and much less resistant to the ravages of the disease when once it gains a foothold. However, a predisposition is a vastly different thing from the inheritance of the actual disease. For just as we are born with a nose well adapted to eye-glasses but not with eye-glasses on our nose, so many of us are born tuberculizable though not tuberculous, and every sanitary advance we make toward lessening the chances of infection is just so much more insurance for the susceptible. The whole problem of tuberculosis is an extremely complex one. We do not know just the measure of the inheritance of the predisposition. Some writers in the past have maintained that tuberculosis is mainly a question of infection and not of inherent susceptibility, but steadily increasing evidence all points the other way. Where the predisposition exists the chances of infection are still, even under the conditions of present-day sanitation, very great. The close association between a consumptive and other members of the family through a prolonged period of time, of course, renders the latter likely to infection unless unusual care is exercised. Very often where a parent is consumptive a child contracts the malady shortly after birth and is particularly likely to do so if the mother, who nurses it and cares for it most intimately, is the tubercular member of the family. Where the mother is tubercular, indeed, the probabilities are that the child has already before birth had its vitality lowered through the toxins circulating in her blood or through defective nutrition, and in consequence does not resist well any diseases. Undoubtedly a large proportion of our infant mortality is of tubercular origin. It is now a well-established fact that much tuberculosis in children is attributable to drinking milk from tuberculous cows, yet we find individuals so uninformed and dairymen so mercenary that they fight all attempts of the commonwealth to test out cattle for tuberculosis so as to condemn the infected individuals and thus save our babies. Recent investigations made in some of our large pork-packing establishments also indicate that hogs, especially such as have been around tubercular cattle, are often shot through and through with tuberculosis and that such flesh when used as food, if not thoroughly cooked, may become a serious menace to our health.