per cent; sixty, seventy, and finally
eighty were successively reached. But with the increase of our power
over the cure of this disease came a realization of our knowledge of its
limitations. It quickly proved itself to be no sovereign and universal
panacea, which would cure all cases, however desperate, or however
indiscriminately it was applied. And emphatically it had to be mixed
with brains, on the part both of the physician and of the patient.

In the first place, the likelihood of a cure depended, with almost
mathematical certainty, upon the earliness of the stage at which it was
begun. Eight or ten years ago the outlook crystallized itself into the
form which it has practically retained since: of cases put under
treatment in the very early stage, from seventy to ninety per cent were
practical cures; of ordinary so-called "first-stage" cases, sixty to
seventy per cent; second-stage cases, or those in whom the disease was
well developed, thirty to sixty per cent; and well-advanced cases,
fifteen to thirty per cent of apparent cures. _The crux of the whole
proposition lies in the early recognition of the disease by the
physician_, and the prompt acceptance of the diagnosis by the patient,
and his willingness to drop everything and fight intelligently and
vigorously for his life. Physicians are now thoroughly awake on this
point, and are concentrating their most careful attention and study upon
methods of recognition at the earliest possible stages. At the same time
those magnificent associations for the study and prevention of
tuberculosis, international, national, state, and local,--the greatest
of which, the International Tuberculosis Congress, has just honored
America, by meeting in Washington,--are straining every nerve to educate
the public to understand the importance of recognizing the earliest
possible symptoms of this disease, no matter how trivial they may
appear, and making every other consideration bend to the fight.

This new Word of Power, the open-air treatment, alone has transformed
one of the most hopeless, most pathetic, and painful fields of disease
into one of the most cheerful and hopeful. The vantage-ground won is
something enormous. No longer need the family physician hang back, in
dread and horror, from allowing himself even to recognize that the slow
loss of weight, the increasing weakness, the flushed evening cheek, and
the restless sleep, are signs of this dread malady. Instead of shrink