Two hundred and fifty thousand people, or one in every two hundred, have the disease in them.
Consumption is caught through carelessness or ignorance, by breathing the germs, or in drinking them in milk.
The following are a few simple rules which, if followed, should help to prevent you from getting it:
1. Live much in the open air. 2. Sleep with the window open. 3. Breathe through the nose. 4. If you drink milk, be sure that it is pure. 5. Keep your blood healthy with exercise, good and plain food. 6. Keep your home clean and well ventilated. 7. Never neglect a cold.
Here are some pictures showing how people get the germs of consumption into them unless they are very careful.
A large number of cows have the germs or seeds of consumption in them, and they give out these germs in their milk. So milk ought to be "sterilised," that is to say, it should be made so hot that the germs are killed before it is drunk.
[Illustration: DO NOT DRINK MILK STRAIGHT FROM THE COW, AS A GREAT
NUMBER OF THESE ANIMALS HAVE THE GERMS OF CONSUMPTION IN THEM.]
Then a large number of people have the consumption germs in them, although they may not yet be ill with it. They will get ill sooner or later, and they give out germs whenever they cough or spit.
[Illustration: HOW CONSUMPTION IS SPREAD.
A man spits and the germs rise. They try a boy who breathes through the nose, but get thrown out again. Then they try another boy who breathes through his open mouth, and so they get into his lungs.]