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the massacre to go on, and have not actively helped in it. Surely it is time
for us to bestir ourselves and to stop it."
It is often very difficult to cure public apathy, or to awaken interest in a
movement, unless some money or other advantage can be shown; and it was
for this reason that I have dwelt on the probable—nay certain saving in the
cost of pauperism, as time passes along, as well as the amelioration of much
sickness and all the misery that sickness involves, if strong action be now taken
although I know that the majority, if not all, the members of this Committee,
are in sympathetic accord with the object of this Report. Indeed, during last
year you had before you five reports on this great subject; and you only
refrained from making a recommendation to the Council as to the provision of
a tuberculosis dispensary for Islington until you knew what payments, if any,
might be derived from the Government through the National Insurance Commissioners
or the Insurance Committee for London.
Before I finally leave this question of the cost of tuberculosis I would like to
put before you some figures which were laid before the Sixth International
Congress on Tuberculosis held in Washington in 1908; and although they are
based on the mortality in the United States, yet they will approximate pro rata
of population, and not very distantly, to the cost of tuberculosis in England. They
are contained in one of the ablest papers I have seen on the subject. It was read
by Mr. James W. Glover, Professor of Mathematics and Insurance in the
University of Michigan, and was illustrated with a series of actuarially calculated
Tables based on the vital statistics of that country, which are of very considerable
interest and value, From these Tables he was able to show that the
total monetary loss to the United States in 1908 was 41,944,737 dollars, and
in New York City 2,322,914 dollars, or, approximately, in English money, nine
millions, and half a million, pounds respectively. In referring to the figures
which he obtained Mr. Glover said that " for the purpose of clearness of
presentation it was decided to confine the attention to the definite group of
wage earners between twenty and sixty. The results obtained on this group
are comparatively free from the criticism of personal estimate. Moreover, with
all the elements above mentioned omitted, the magnitude of these minimum
figures should be sufficiently great to sharply call the attention of our legislative
bodies and others in authority to the fact that they have a great problem
confronting them. In addition to the suffering, misery, and untimely deaths
due to tuberculosis, the country is constantly subjected to a tremendous financial
drain. No clearer duty lies before the people of this country to-day than the
conservation of these vital forces which are now so unnecessarily and cruelly
being wasted. If the minimal value of the monetary loss involved in this
waste of vital forces can be determined, are we not justified in Spending a large