It was no accident that man mastered the plague more easily than tuberculosis. The one comes in terrible waves of death that shake humanity to the foundations, the other slowly and stealthily; the one leads to terrible fear, the other to gradual indifference. The consequence is that man opposed the one with all the ruthlessness of his energy, while he tries to control consumption with feeble means. Thus he mastered the plague, while tuberculosis masters him.
Exactly the same is true of diseases of national bodies. If they do not take the form of catastrophe, man slowly begins to get accustomed
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