weakens the
resistance of the white corpuscles, and that therefore the person who is
an habitual user of alcohol lacks the power to repel all classes of
disease. English and American life insurance companies give us almost
exactly the same figures, which show that of insured persons, the death
rate is twenty-three per cent. higher among those who use alcohol than
among total abstainers. It is probable that the proportion of persons
carrying life insurance is much less among the drinking classes and that
if we had complete statistics the difference would be far greater than
appears in the life insurance tables.

Of time lost by sickness, directly and through other diseases caused by
alcoholism, drugs and other bad habits, the percentage is very great,
according to all hospital records.

The number of prominent persons who have died of "tobacco heart"
indicates that the rate of those whose heart action is weakened by the
use of tobacco is probably very large.

Doctor Morrow says that if we could put an end at once to diseases
caused by bad habits it would result in closing at least one-half of our
institutions for defective persons, and almost all of our penal
institutions.

There is another long list of diseases which are contagious, that is,
which one person may transmit to another. These are usually serious but
their spread may be largely prevented by keeping the sick person alone,
except for the necessary nurses, quarantining the house and disinfecting
everything when the period of infection is past.

In this class are smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, mumps,
chicken-pox and whooping-cough.

These latter are the so-called "childish diseases" which it was formerly
considered impossible to escape, and little attempt was made to guard
against them. Now they are recognized as serious, whooping-cough for its
close relation to brain and spinal trouble; measles for their effect on
the eyes and lungs; chicken-pox for its similarity to smallpox, and
mumps for its general lowering of the tone of the system, allowing other
diseases to gain a foothold.

Special serum treatment for diphtheria and vaccination for smallpox have
greatly reduced the danger from these once greatly dreaded diseases.

Of preventable diseases none should receive more attention than typhoid
fever, because it is a great scourge and yet it can be prevented by
simple means. If we understand that typhoid is a dirt disease, that it
comes