Now let us see how much of this vital wealth is wasted. As the average death rate is at least eighteen out of each thousand, we have 1,500,000 as the number of deaths in the United States each year. Of these, forty-two per cent., or 630,000 are classed as preventable--so that a number equal to the entire population of the city of Boston die each year whose deaths are as unnecessary as is the waste of our forests by fire. If some great plague should carry off all the people of Boston, not the people of the United States only, but of the whole world would be roused by the appalling calamity and every possible means would be employed to prevent other cities from sharing such a fate; but because these preventable deaths are not in one city, but are widely scattered, we have long remained indifferent to this terrible and needless waste. Then there are always 3,000,000 persons ill, 1,000,000 of whom are of working age. If, as before, we count only three-fourths of them as actual workers, we find a yearly direct loss from sickness of $500,000,000 in wages. The daily cost of nursing, doctor bills, and medicine is counted at one dollar and fifty cents, which makes for the 3,000,000 sick, a yearly cost for these items of more than $1,500,000,000. What should we think if nearly all of the people of the city of New York were constantly sick, and were spending for doctors, nurses, and medicine as much money as Congress appropriates to run every department of the government! It is estimated that sickness and death cost the United States $3,000,000,000 annually, of which at least a third, probably one-half, is preventable. Is it not well worth while, then, from a money standpoint alone, to use every effort to conserve our national health? Conservation of health and life, going hand in hand with conservation of national resources, will give us not only a better America, but better, stronger, happier, more enlightened Americans. What a new world would be opened to us if we could have a nation with no sickness or suffering! That is the ideal, and everything that we can do toward realizing that ideal is a great step in human progress. REFERENCES Report on National Vitality. Committee of One Hundred. (Fisher.) The Nature of Man. Metchnikoff. The Prolongation of Life. Metchnikoff. The New Hygiene. Metchnikoff. Vital Statistics. Farr. The Kingdom of Man. Lankester. Cost of Tuberculosis. Fisher. School Hygiene. Keating. Economic Loss Through Insects That Carry Disease. Howard. Report of Associated Fraternities on Infectious, Contagious, and Hereditary Diseases. Conservation of Life and Health by Improved Water Supply. Kober. Backward Children in the Public Schools. Davis. Dangers to Mine Workers. (Mitchell.) Report Governor's Conference. Tuberculosis in the U. S. Census Report 1908. Industrial Accidents. Bureau of Labor Pamphlet, 1906. Factory Sanitation and Labor Protection. Dept. of Labor, No. 44.