By the time that Geary quit the subject it seemed that phthisis, ‘the white plague’, was about to be mastered; in Ireland its eradication had replaced its control,21 which had been the concern of physicians at a Royal Academy of Medicine symposium in 1899.22 From its high place in mortality tables as one of the leading causes of death, tuberculosis has declined and is now so low that it has slipped from consciousness in developed countries. But in 1996 more than 3 million people worldwide died of the disease, and Arata Kochi, director of the WHO Global Tuberculosis Programme, reports that that 22 countries now account for 80% of all cases, and predicts that by the year 2020, 70 million more people will die of tuberculosis.23 Combating poverty, raising living standards, reducing overcrowding, razing slums, remove important contributing factors, but the all-important determining factor is inhalation or ingestion of Koch’s bacillus,Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Geary set a headline for all those who desired to apply statistical analysis to medico-social problems in Ireland. His work continues to have relevance in relation to the problem of global tuberculosis from which this island is not immune.