Excerpt from The Battle With Tuberculosis and How to Win It: A Book for the Patient and His Friends

During a sojourn of eighteen months as a patient at sanatoria in Canada and the United States, and a residence of two years in a health resort, the writer has had opportunity to meet many sufferers from tuberculosis and to come much nearer their secret thoughts, hopes and misgivings than was ever pos sible during ten years of medical practice previous to his illness. As a result of many conversations, not a few confidences, and witnessing the little comedies and tragedies that ordinarily are enacted behind the scenes of sanatorium life, he is no longer in doubt as to why tuberculosis, which the scientist knows tends kindly towards arrest, is such a fatal disease. He has become increasingly convinced that the great number of deaths occur, not because the disease is terribly virulent, for in most cases it is not, but simply because the majority of patients do not understand, or even begin to comprehend, the significance of the reasons underlying the only treatment that will bring success. And so this little book is written in the hope of setting forth in a simple and interesting, but none the less compre hensive and convincing manner, the fundamental scientific facts which help to answer the patient's constant inquiry - Why must I do this? Here and there similes and metaphors may seem extrava gant, but the writer has sought by figure of speech to appeal to the patient, whilst being essentially true to the scientific understanding of the day.

It may not be without interest and encourage ment to some readers of this little book to know the writer's personal experience with tuberculosis. The disease in his case has been of the acute variety and manifested itself after an attack Of influenza complicated by double pneumonia. It spread rapidly to every lobe of the lungs, on both the right and the left side of the chest, and later at tacked the larynx or throat. It enforced a. Com plete confinement to bed for over two years, and at times made thought of recovery seem impossible. But now, just four years since the disease made its appearance, it has become so quiescent as to permit of a limited amount of work, and life would seem to hold for the writer the prospect of years of per sonal happiness and also of service to his fellow sufferers.

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