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51
ledge; hence the importance of checking
overcrowding in houses and on area, of
improving lighting and ventilation, and
removing dampness of walls and floors.
Improved housing implies larger rooms and
more of them, so as to permit separate sleeping
accommodation for adults and children, and
for separating the sick from the healthy. It
is a common thing to find a phthisical
patient occupying the same room and even
the same bed with his wife and children, than
which no more certain method of spreading
infection could be found.
(3) The posting of warning notices against spitting
on pavements and tramcars, etc. The
pernicious habit of promiscuous expectoration
has of late been somewhat checked by the
publication of notices, but is still much too
common, such filthy habits undoubtedly help
to spread disease.
(4) Early recognition of disease. A very large
proportion of those persons who contract
pulmonary tuberculosis in its slighter forms
forms recover with no permanent ill-effects,
and that this is so, is demonstrated by the
fact that the scars of old healed tubercular
lesions are found in a very large number of
post-mortem examinations made upon patients
who have died from diseases other than
tuberculosis. Every means for the early
recognition of tubercular invasion should be