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11
is on account of consumption, so that at the present time you
are spending quite £1,000,000 a year on consumption.
Now if a million were successfully spent on the prevention
and cure of consumption you may think you would
only save one-eleventh of the cost of pauperism, but you
would save much more. One-fourth of all the deaths between
15 and 55 years of age are due to consumption, and these
deaths are amongst workers who, if prevented from consumption,
could go on earning wealth for the State in our great
industries for many years. At death each man's technical
knowledge is lost to the State. One human machine is
destroyed, the wages he would have earned cease to circulate
amongst the traders of our towns, and his widow and orphans
become a charge on the charitable or the rates. The money
thus lost is overlooked by the public generally because there
is no means of calculating it, but the charges on insurance
offices and friendly societies are keenly realised by those
interested.
Now what are the means of prevention and the methods
of cure ?
It is from the poor and crowded populations that the
vast death-rate from consumption arises; it is from them
that the great bulk of poison material emanates. They are
continually discharging the consumption bacteria into the air
of workshops, houses, conveyances, and places of amusement
and religious worship.
The first warning to be impressed upon those who have
consumption is that they must keep their infection to themselves.
This can be done by each person taking proper
means to destroy or disinfect his spit. Cheap spitting bottles
can be purchased which can be readily cleansed and disinfected,
or paperhandkerchiefs may be used and afterwards
burnt. When such precautions are taken the bacteria instead
of being discharged wholesale into the air are kept about
the person of the consumptive until he can dispose of his
dangerous poison by burning or disinfection.
In many places bye-laws against spitting are in force and
should be extended to Kingston and all other places. On
March 22nd, 1906, a man was fined £1 for persistently spitting
on a tramcar from Dalkey to Dublin.