May 29th, 1914--"Efficient Disinfection of Premises After Tuberculosis," by Professor P. G. Heinemann, Department of Bacteriology, University of Chicago. The organization of the Tuberculosis Study Circle among the nurses of the Dispensary Department of the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, calling forth the best efforts of the nurses in getting information on various phases of tuberculosis for presentation to their co-workers in an interesting manner has, no doubt, stimulated the progress of our entire nursing force. The first five papers presented by the nurses are given in this series. The pamphlet is published with the idea of attracting the attention of other organizations to this method of stimulating more intensive study among their nurses. =THEODORE B. SACHS, M. D., President= Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium. HISTORICAL NOTES ON TUBERCULOSIS By ROSALIND MACKAY, R. N. Head Nurse, Stock Yards Dispensary of the Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium. So far as our information goes, pulmonary tuberculosis has always existed. It is, as Professor Hirsch remarks, "A disease of all times, all countries, and all races. No climate, no latitude, no occupation, forms a safeguard against the onset of tuberculosis, however such conditions may mitigate its ravages or retard its progress. Consumption dogs the steps of man wherever he may be found, and claims its victims among every age, class and race." Hippocrates, the most celebrated physician of antiquity (460-377 B. C.), and the true father of scientific medicine, gives a description of pulmonary tuberculosis, ascribing it to a suppuration of the lungs, which may arise in various ways, and declares it a disease most difficult to treat, proving fatal to the greatest number. Isocrates, also a Greek physician and contemporary of Hippocrates, was the first to write of tuberculosis as a disease transmissible through contagion. Aretaeus Cappadox (50 A. D.) describes tuberculosis as a special pathological process. His clinical picture is considered one of the best in literature. Galen (131-201 A. D.) did not get much beyond Hippocrates in the study of tuberculosis, but was very specific in his recommendation of a milk diet and dry climate. He held it dangerous to pass an entire day in the company of a tuberculous patient. During the next fifteen centuries, a period known as the Dark Ages and characterized by most intense intellectual stagnation, little was added to the knowledge of pulmonary tuberculosis. In the seventeenth century Franciscus Sylvius brought out the relationship between phthisis and nodules in the lymphatic glands. This was the first step toward accurate knowledge of the pathology of tuberculosis.