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So far I have only dealt with the connection between propaganda
and tuberculosis, and the question now arises as to the extension of
our propaganda to other diseases.
Nowadays the most ignorant have some ideas as to the prevention
of infectious diseases, since the establishment of infectious disease
hospitals on a large scale in London during the last 30 or 40 years
has brought home to the poorest parts of the metropolis the necessity
of isolation of the sick from the healthy. The workers in special
trades, such as those that involve the use of lead and the handling
of skins and wool, have also acquired an elementary knowledge of
prevention, but there is a vast mass of illness, some of which never
appears in the death returns, and some of which does, about which
the majority, whether rich or poor, have little or no knowledge. Of
the disabling but not deadly illnesses, I may mention the diseases
grouped under the name of " Rheumatism," viz., Rheumatic Fever,
Chronic Rheumatism of joints, muscular Rheumatism, Lumbago
and Sciatica, and Rheumatic Gout or Rheumatoid Arthritis, that
insidious disease which causes chronic enlargements and deformities
of the hands, knees, ankles and spine, and eventually compels the
sufferer to become bedridden, and various kinds of Neuralgias, etc.
Now practically all these diseases are due to an invasion of the
tissues by microbes or germs, but the medical profession does not
know in many cases where these germs come from, or how they gain
entrance, but they at least know the mode of entrance in some cases.
For instance, by far the commonest source of malignant germs is
" bad teeth," and this generally assumes two forms : " dental caries "
or decay, and " pyorrhœa." Most people know when they have
got the former, but very few, unless they visit a dentist, are aware
that they are afflicted by the latter. Nevertheless from these
sources poisonous micro-organisms are continually being poured
into the stomach, or else into the blood and lymphatic streams direct
from the gums, which in the former case will lead to dyspepsia and
ulcer of the stomach, and in the latter to some form of rheumatism
or neuritis. It follows, therefore, from this that were people thoroughly
convinced of the evil of bad teeth they would regularly