To fill in the registration cards is the nurse’s work. To supervise these cards, and note their correctness and accuracy, should be the work of the superintendent of nurses, in whose name they should be signed. This transaction is one of the most important tasks of the office, and extreme care should be taken that non-tuberculous patients are not registered by mistake. CHAPTER X Prevention of Tuberculosis—Sources through Which Calls are Received—Entering the Home—Telling the Truth to the Patient—Truth for the Family—Disposal of Sputum—Danger of Expired Air—Isolation of Dishes—Linen, Household and Personal—Disinfectant and Other Supplies—Phthisiphobia. =The Prevention of Tuberculosis.= The object of the nurse’s work is to prevent the spread of tuberculosis—it is not to cure the disease. In doing the preventive work, it often follows that the patient himself is immensely benefited, and his disease apparently arrested. This arrest, however, is incidental—it is not the real object of the work, which is the protection of individuals as yet uninfected. In no other branch of nursing is there so much misunderstanding, so much placing of the cart before the horse, and so much emphasis laid on the wrong thing. Nurses themselves when they first begin the work fail to recognize the real issue, and think that it is the actual care of the patient which is the thing to be considered. This is totally wrong—_we work through the patient to gain our ends, but he himself is not the main object_. It is necessary to grasp this fact firmly, and keep it constantly in mind. This will not only prevent much disappointment and discouragement, but it will lay the foundation for more intelligent work. On entering the home of the consumptive, the nurse has before her two responsibilities, the family and the patient. The former is infinitely larger and more important, since it is the family, as yet uninfected, which must be protected from the patient, or source of the disease. Instead of “family” substitute the word “community” and we have the crux of the situation—the protection of the community from the danger to which it is exposed. This protection may be accomplished largely through care of the patient, but care of the patient, only, as such, is a secondary matter. The vital and important concern is the welfare of his family. To confuse these two issues, and put the patient first, and the family, which means the community, second, would delay indefinitely the result we hope to attain. As far as possible, the interests of the two, patient and family, should be identical, but whenever a choice must be made between them, the welfare of the community has the right of way.