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TWELVE COLD DINNERS.

If a man is to eat a cold dinner for months or even for weeks, it is quite worth while to make that dinner as good as it can be, and to pack it nicely for carrying. Every one knows how it can take the edge off even a keen appetite to find his sandwich smeared with apple pie, or his cake soaked with vinegar from the pickles. That a box or basket of given dimensions should hold as much as possible, and keep the different kinds of food separate, it must be divided into compartments. Simplest, an oblong basket; divide into two compartments by a piece of pasteboard cut so that it slips in rather tightly, then line the two compartments with nice wrapping paper put in fresh every day. It may be divided into four parts in the same way. A close fitting tin spice-box is nice for holding cheese. A tiny "salve" box should contain salt and pepper mixed. Sew leather straps on the cover of the basket inside, for holding knife, fork, and spoon. Put a strap around the basket, that you may hang from it a little pail containing cold soups recommended for drinks in summer. Cold puddings should be wrapped in strong writing paper, then in wrapping paper, and pinned close.

COLD DINNERS FOR SUMMER.

1. Bread and butter, salad of potatoes and cold baked fish, cold boiled beef, molasses cookies, apple soup.

2. Corn bread, ham sandwiches, baked sweet apples, custard pie, plum soup.

3. Bread and butter, cold veal, hard boiled eggs, pickled beets, cherry pie. 4. Chopped beef sandwiches, salad of lima beans, ginger snaps, cottage cheese, Irish moss lemonade.

5. Graham bread, cold roast mutton, cucumbers and salt, pumpkin pie, soda

cream.

6. Bread and butter, dried beef, crackers, cheese, sponge cake, cold coffee.

COLD DINNERS FOR WINTER.

7. Bread, cold boiled pork, cold baked beans with mustard and vinegar, doughnuts, apple pie, cold coffee.

8. Yeast biscuits and butter, cold chicken, pickles, cold rice pudding, apples. 9. Cold soda biscuits, veal and ham sandwiches, saratoga potatoes, mince pie.

10. Biscuits and butter with honey, cold corned beef and rye bread, dried apple tarts, cheese.

II. Bread and butter, smoked herring, pickled beans, gingerbread, apples. 12. Corn bread and butter, cold roast beef and white bread, bread and apple pudding, bread cake.

PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS.

*

BY IRVING A. WATSON, A. M., M. D., SECRETARY STATE BOARD OF HEALTH, CONCORD, N. H.

Pulmonary consumption either is or is not contagious. If it is contagious, then the lives of a very large part of the human race, -individuals and families in every neighborhood, are dependent in a great measure upon organized efforts to restrict its spread. If it is not contagious, the efforts should be none the less determined in modifying or removing such unhealthful environments as are known or supposed to have an influence in the propagation of this fearful disease. On the one hand the work of restriction differs very materially and radically from that of the other, so it is of the utmost importance that the question be determined as far as possible beyond the point of controversy, in order that uniform and scientific methods of prevention may be inaugurated. The great weight of evidence to-day preponderates decidedly to the support of the theory of contagion, although there are many physicians who have not seen sufficient proof to believe in its contagiousness. In support of their view it is argued that isolated cases of consumption are to be found in almost every community, while even other members of the family and associates do not contract the disease. It is also cited that the records of hospitals for the treatment of consumption show that the attendant physicians and nurses rarely if ever contract the disease. Particularly are

* The first section of this paper was originally presented at a regular meeting of the New Hampshire Centre District Medical Society, to open the discussion of the question: "Is Phthisis Pulmonalis contagious, and should the Profession advocate more strenuous means of preventing the spread of the disease?"

the statistics of the Brompton Hospital, England, brought to the support of this theory. These records embrace the personal history of thousands of patients, extending over a period of more than thirty years, and in not a single instance can it be shown that the attendant physicians contracted the disease, while the percentage of consumptive cases among the nurses was very low.

It must be borne in mind that nearly all the evidence against the theory of the contagiousness of consumption is of a negative character. Exemption from this or any other disease can only be regarded as a sort of corroborative evidence, although it is not infrequently used as argument against facts established by scientific research even.

The theory that consumption is contagious is not new. The idea has been entertained and not infrequently expressed by observing physicians for many generations. Two hundred years ago Morton, writing upon consumption, says: "This disease is also propagated by infection, for this distemper, as I have observed it by frequent experience, like a contagious fever doth infect those that lie with a sick person with a certain taint." Even in the older medical journals may be found the history of consumptive cases in which it is averred that the disease is contracted by other members of the family or by the nurse through infection.

A belief in the contagiousness of the disease has always been entertained by a small minority of the medical profession, but not until the year 1882 was there any tangible evidence, worthy of general acceptance, presented. When in that year Dr. Robert Koch, of Germany, in a very unpretentious manner informed the Physiological Society of Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus of tuberculosis, the announcement was received with little credence by the profession, and had it not been for the fact that by following in his methods of investigation microscopists in every part of the world were able to isolate this same bacillus, the fact would probably have not yet been accepted. Under the specific directions given by Dr. Koch, it was an easy matter for any physician to isolate this bacillus in the sputa of his own consumptive patients; therefore, the existence of the bacillus tuberculosis is a fact settled beyond all controversy.

A failure to discover the bacillus in a case of phthisis pulmonalis cannot be regarded as evidence of the non-existence of the

germ. In discussing this point before the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. Roosevelt emphasized the fact that in phthisis we often have no tubercle so situated as to be connected with the air passages, and in such cases the sputa would contain no bacilli, although extensive tubercular deposit might already have taken place. It is also possible that the bronchial discharge might be so great that the bacillus would be overlooked in the examination. Therefore no one should deny the existence of phthisis because the bacillus is not found, for even after the most careful examination it cannot positively be asserted that the disease does not exist, on this ground alone.

The next question, over which there has been considerable dispute, is as to whether the bacillus tuberculosis is the cause of consumption or only an accompanying product. This same question was for a long time an unsettled problem in other germ diseases, but the investigations and experiments that have been made with the bacilli of other diseases, especially those affecting domestic animals, have practically banished all doubt upon this point. In the experiments alluded to, the germ or bacillus of the particular disease under investigation has been carefully and completely isolated from all other products, and the disease again and again reproduced by means of vaccination with the bacillus alone. So extensive and varied have been these experiments that there is left but the shadow of a doubt for discussion in this direction.

It is fair to assume that the experiments made in the germ diseases of animals which have led to these conclusions will apply with equal force to consumption or any other germ disease in the human family. It is true that through lack of opportunity to make clinical experiments upon the human subject in these diseases the conclusions are not as positive as those in regard to anthrax, swine plague, etc., among domestic animals. A large number of inoculative experiments, however, have been made with the bacillus tuberculosis upon Guinea pigs, rabbits, and other animals, with the result of almost invariably producing tuberculosis. In those instances in which there has been a failure to reproduce the disease by inoculation, the result was believed to be due to the introduction of an imperfect virus or because the animal possessed sufficient powers of resistance to repel the invasion of the disease.

A large number of inoculative experiments might be cited to

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