(Concluded from page 512.)
Recent research has simplified our classification of phthisis. Certainly as far as indications for treatment are concerned, the all imporatnt question to decide is, when does a degenerative process in the lungs become tubercular? We know that two conditions are necessary: 1. Susceptibility or soil. 2. Impregnation and germination.
The writers in the earlier part of this century recorded the clinical evidence of the liability of even the simplest bronchial catarrh to become an uncontrollable phthisical degeneration. They also recorded percentages of recovery due to what we can now ascribe as due to a continued residence in an aseptic atmosphere. It is possibly true that the bacillus of tuberculosis may find its way into the animal economy through the stomach or by the abraded mucous or cutaneous surfaces. IT is absolutely sure that a tubercular person in an ordinary dwelling, theatre, church or closed vehicle, will