Excerpt from Industrial Colonies and Village Settlements for the Consumptive

Symonds, and we together examined the patients, sampled the climate and other conditions, and argued with Unger and Ruedi. Then for the second time came Hope; more solid Hope. Given a fairly early case, and three years, and recovery was in the offing. And so we went on cheerfully with Davos. But Davos was not for every one; nor was every case an early 'one. Then came the discovery that lower altitudes would do if certain conditions were obtained; and so arose the great sanatorium movement. But slowly we found that patients could not spend their lives in sanatoriums; and one day on making my way up to one of them in England, I met on the way patient after patient, slouching along, bored to death with themselves and with each other; and even worse in morale than in body. Better discipline and better notions of thera peutics mended some of that; still I could not forget those listless saunterers, and it became evident to some of us, however unwillingly, that Hope was drooping again. The sanatorium was doing a great educative work no doubt; but at the end of its four or six months - what then? To send the patient away with recommendations about light jobs, and a regime, was almost a mockery or quite. What about the wage, and the family to be supported? The next lesson was brought home to me by a visit with other commissioners to certain cities, concerning some such problems. Before me now I see a gaunt hollow-eyed man, coughing, and leaning against the wall as he tried to talk to us, saying that his mates when he came out of the sanatorium - good fellows as they were - had bought him a milk that he might creep round, and earn a bit. The brave wife, shawl on head and mill apron on, had just come from the factory, and apologised for the dirty house - as well she might. The poor thing was working all day at the factory to keep the wolf from the door. All being dragged down together into the pit! What is the value of a good house, or a clean house, if no wages! What is there for the children? And what is to stop the infection! Who then would have the imagination, the initiative, the business capacity, to lift this burden, like lifting a world?

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