It is no uncommon thing to have a child of seven jump three to five inches in height, six to twelve pounds in weight, and one to three grades in his schooling, within the year following the operation. Ten years more of intelligence and hygienic teaching should see this scourge of childhood completely wiped out, or at least robbed of its possibilities for harm. When this is done, at least two-thirds of all cases of deafness, more than half of all cases of arrested development, and three-fourths of those of backwardness in children will disappear. CHAPTER VI TUBERCULOSIS, A SCOTCHED SNAKE I One of the darling habits of humanity is to discover that we are facing a crisis. One could safely offer a large prize for a group of ten commencement orations, or political platforms, at least a third of which did not announce this momentous fact. Either we are facing it or it confronts us, and unutterable things will happen unless we "gird up our loins," and vote the right ticket. An interesting feature about these loudly heralded crises is that they hardly ever "crise." The real crisis either strikes us so hard that we never know what hit us, or is over before we recognize that anything was going to happen. And most of our reflections about it are after ones--trying to explain what caused it. In fact, in public affairs, as in medicine, a crisis is a sign of recovery. Its occurrence is an indication that nature is preparing to throw off the disease. Nowhere is this truth more vividly illustrated than in the tuberculosis situation. When, about thirty years ago, the world began to awake from its stupor of centuries, and to realize that this one great disease alone was _killing one-seventh of all people born under civilization_, and crippling as many more; that its killed and wounded every year cast in the shade the bloodiest wars ever waged, and that it was apparently caused by the civilization which it ravaged,--no wonder that we were appalled at the outlook.