Chapter 37

cleanliness.

3. Individual immunity and social conditions favorable to general immunity.

VIII. RESPONSIBILITY OF SOCIETY FOR TUBERCULOSIS

1. A symposium of representative

a. Citizens. b. Social workers. c. Employers. d. Employees. e. Physicians. f. Nurses. g. Educators. h. Others.

Cash prizes of one thousand dollars each are offered: (1) for the best evidence of effective work in the prevention or relief of tuberculosis by any voluntary association since 1905; (2) for the best exhibit of a sanatorium for working classes; (3) for the best exhibit of a furnished home for the poor, designed primarily to prevent, but also to permit the cure of tuberculosis.

A white-plague scrapbook containing news items, articles, and photographs will prove an interesting aid to self-education or to instruction of children, working girls' clubs, or mothers' meetings. Everybody ought to enlist in this war, for the fight against tuberculosis is a fight for cleanliness and for vitality, for a fair chance against environmental conditions prejudicial to efficient citizenship.

So sure is the result and so immediate the duty of every citizen that Dr. Biggs wrote in 1907: _In no other direction can such large results be achieved so certainly and at such relatively small cost. The time is not far distant when those states and municipalities which have not adopted a comprehensive plan for dealing with tuberculosis will be regarded as almost criminally negligent in their administration of sanitary affairs and inexcusably blind to their own best economic interests._

FOOTNOTES:

[13] The best literature on tuberculosis is in current magazines and reports of anti-tuberculosis crusaders. For a scientific, comprehensive treatment, libraries and students should have _The Prevention of Tuberculosis_ (1908) by Arthur Newsholme, M.D. A popular book is _The Crusade against Tuberculosis_, by Lawrence F. Flick, of the Henry Phipps Institute for the Study, Treatment, and Prevention of Tuberculosis.

[14] Those desiring copies this year or hereafter will do well to write to The National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, 105 East 22d St., New York City. The congress is under the control of the National Association and is managed by a special committee appointed by it. Even after a national board of health is established, the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis will continue to be a center for private interest in public protection against tuberculosis. One of its chief functions is the preparation and distribution of literature to those who desire it.