It was at this very unfortunate and undignified stage in the development of our dispensary work in America that we received priceless help from France, help which I am all the more anxious to acknowledge to-day because it has not, I think, been fully appreciated in the past. We in America have not given to France the full expression of the gratitude which, for her services in the field of medicine, as in even more important phases of our national life, it is to-day particularly fitting that we should utter. The timely contribution made by France at this halting and unsatisfactory stage in the evolution of our dispensaries came through the work of the great Dr. Calmette, of Lille. Calmette's introduction of the anti-tuberculosis dispensary as a focal centre of the fight against tuberculosis contained among other important provisions the institution of the _visite domiciliaire_. The functions of the person making this visit were not precisely the same as those of the social worker whom I am describing in this book, but the latter may truly be said to have grown out of the former, nourished by some contributing elements from other sources. So far as I know, Calmette was the first to see that in the struggle of the dispensary against this particular disease, tuberculosis, it is essential to make contact with the home, and to treat the disease there as well as at the dispensary itself. In Calmette's view the function of the _visite domiciliaire_ was an outgrowth of his bacteriological training and his bactericidal plan for treating tuberculosis. The home visitor was a part of the plan of antisepsis, a method of destroying the bacteria through disinfection and sterilization of the premises and of the patient's linen. In America the work of the home visitor in cases of tuberculosis has been concerned less with the disinfection and bactericidal procedures than with the positive measures of hygiene, such as the better housing of the patient, better nutrition, better provision for sunlight and fresh air, and above all instruction of the patient as to the nature of his disease and the methods to be pursued in combating it. But the great debt which we owe to Calmette was the linkage of the dispensary and the home by means of the home visitor. In America we have applied this principle, outside the field of tuberculosis, to all other diseases, and we have broadened the field of work assigned to the social worker. Nevertheless, the idea was primarily Calmette's.