Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/301

Rh of people of the poorer classes with considerable powers of resistance, but who, under the very unfavourable conditions of dirt, ventilation, occupation, &c. which prevail in their own homes, acquire the disease, and who, in a hospital, have their vitality so improved that they are able to defy it in spite of the presence of the microorganisms. But conditions as good, as regards diet, &c., as those which obtain in special hospitals, are to be had elsewhere in places where the tubercle bacilh are not so abundant, and where therefore re-infection is not so probable. Certain it is that the results obtained in our special hospitals do not compare with those obtained at foreign health-resorts, where the disease is not prevalent among the natives, and where the bacilli are therefore absent. It is probable, however, that the gathering of infected individuals to health resorts tends to destroy their value, and that they may, if fit conditions prevail, if dwellings such as those which the sufferers came from be built, if the old conditions of life be reproduced, become absolute plague spots.

Excellent health resorts are isolated places at high altitudes; better still are new countries where the disease is not prevalent, or has not long been so. To these we may send, with advantage, such of our consumptives as have not had their vital powers hopelessly lowered, i.e. who are not in an advanced stage of consumption, or such of them as are not so little resistant as to have taken the disease in its acute form. Under the new conditions, should their phagocytes overcome the bacilli, there will be less probability of re-infection. But sufferers from advanced or from acute tuberculosis are obviously unsuited for expatriation, for, since they are already infected, and since their phagocytes are unable to destroy the bacilli already within them, an environment free from the pathogenic micro-organisms offers no advantage.