In a community which is beginning tuberculosis work, there are usually a few physicians who will generously volunteer their services in examining suspected cases. The nurse, however, will feel some hesitation in accepting these kindly offers, since to take full advantage of them would be to swamp these physicians with a class of patients which would leave them but little time for their private practice. These offers, however, may well be utilized in the formation of a special dispensary, since the same men would doubtless be equally willing to examine patients at some central locality. No matter how humble the quarters, how imperfect the equipment, it is necessary to establish as soon as possible a special place where these patients may be freely examined without any sense of intrusion or of incurred obligation. =The General Dispensary.= In many cities, general dispensaries exist for the treatment of minor medical and surgical diseases. It is possible to send tuberculous patients to these dispensaries, and to get them examined and diagnosed, but as a rule this is not satisfactory. These general dispensaries are usually crowded, and the physicians in charge are unable to give sufficient time to the protracted, careful examination which the consumptive requires. However, failing a special dispensary, the nurse must take advantage of these general clinics and accept all the help they are able to give. =Sputum Examinations.= In many States, the local or State Departments of Health maintain laboratories for the examination of sputum. The nurse as well as the doctor should be allowed the privilege of sending specimens for examination. If the findings are positive, the result is a diagnosis from which there can be no appeal. The difficulty with this means of diagnosis, however, is that many specimens are negative upon first examination. It may require repeated examinations to find the bacilli, or before their continued absence may be considered evidence that the patient is not tuberculous. Dr. Victor F. Cullen, Superintendent of the Maryland Tuberculosis Sanatorium, writes: “We had one case that was examined sixty-seven times before tubercle bacilli were found, and this was a far advanced case, with both lungs involved from top to bottom, and cavities in each lung. “We have at the present time (September 14, 1914) a patient in the Sanatorium, with both lungs diffusely involved, with a huge cavity in her left lung, expectoration about two boxes daily, whose sputum was examined twenty-four times, with only three positive findings. “These advanced cases with a lot of bronchial secretion are usually the ones in which it is difficult to find tubercle bacilli in one or two examinations.”