in discovering a cure for tuberculosis, he would have harmed
the human race more than all diseases combined. Had tuber-
culin possessed the power he fondly and foolishly hoped to find,
the race would quickly have degenerated into appalling weak-
ness and morbidity. For of course the lungless would have
bred the coming race, and imperfect oxygenation of the blood
would have not alone chests contracted, but every other organ
and function of the body, not the least those powers we call
mental and psychic. What a multitude of other diseases are
also directly or indirectly traceable to the same source! It is
not the comma-bacillus we need to kill but the nidus it finds
in poor lungs. Nature is under the necessity of sacrificing both
the poor lungs and their pitiable possessors. Civilization can
only cure and prevent the disease by undoing the evil of non-
ventilation, overcrowding, indoor life, and nonexercise, and
by exercise and active labor developing the vitality and strength
which successfully resist the tuberculous bacilli now and always
in all our lungs, and preventing them from becoming pathogenic.
In the same way, should I take up each of the diseases or
class of diseases from which the people suffer or die, it would
be easy to point out the causal nexus with immorality, with
ignorance (which is also sin), and with selfishness in its multitude
of phases. In general paralysis, tabes, abortion, apoplexy,
puerperal fever, in diseases of the kidneys, stomach and intes-
tines, heart and liver, in gout, and even in the acute infectious
diseases, you know how sexual crime, improper food, alcohol,



J 36 DISEASE AND SIN.
