POST-MORTEM CONSEQUENCES
The start of tuberculosis in France in a serious sense may be traced to the great importance of mummies and mummy-cases at the time of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, and this start gave the disease its first great foothold in Europe, whence it has spread all over the Eastern world and throughout the Western hemisphere as well. Dead bodies preserved in the manner peculiar to the Egyptians of the time of the Pharaohs are undoubtedly favorite lodging-places for the tubercular bacilli. (Text.)
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POVERTY
This letter was left by Miss Alice Law, aged 26, an editor employed by a local publishing firm in Chicago, who committed suicide by asphyxiation:
I am ending my life because I am seized with an acute disinclination to live, and I believe I have an absolute right to end my life if I wish. The struggle is too hard. There is too much work, too much monotony, too much weariness and not enough art, music, recreation and rest.
I am to change it. I am in my right mind. My reasoning powers are as good as ever. I go because I want to. The chief reason is because I am too near starved. Let the State pay my expenses. If I were blind, crippled or had an incurable disease the State would be obliged to take care of me. So I think I will take advantage of my rights and be buried at the public expense, as I have no money to defray the putting of me under ground.
The prices charged for a casket and burial are too exorbitant for persons in moderate circumstances. It just keeps the family in bankruptcy for a year. This condition is outrageous, and I do not want this injustice in my case.
Doubtless Christianity has achieved much, but in the light of such a revelation of suffering and despair, under conditions of modern life, there would seem yet much to do.
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