THE WHITE PLAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 138, 13 June 1922, Page 4

THE WHITE PLAGUE.

n I Interest in the question of the treatI ment and prevention of consumption is kept ailive by such controversies as thait 1 between Dr. Blackniorc. head of the : Sanatorium a>i Christ-church, and Dr. C i Valintine. of the Health Department, V ami by such an address as Dr. Bernstoin, 1 another expert in the treatment of . tuberculosis, crave at the Rotary Club : yesrtcrday. Or. Valintine, on behalf of " . tho Health Department, has replied vigorously to the strictures of Dr. j Blackmorc, challenging- some of his I j figures and contending that the Depart- , ! ment has done much more than Dr. Blackmorc gives it credit lor. But even ;if it is granted that Dr. Valintine's I reply is in certain respects effective, it does not alter the fact that a great ; deal more might be done to con_bat the j disease. Statistics on the subject, as Iwe pointed out recently, are not so ; satisfactory as they might he. There is ! still a great deal of work to he done c | in the way of providing more sanatoria, i organising employment for convalesis I 6 _ J . cents, keeping traak of cases, educating the public, and assisting the depen- , dents of patients. There must be a tragic number of cases in which fathe-ra ' ■ c j - and mothers refrain from undergoing a j cure simply because there would be no i one to look after their families when i they were away. If they do go into hospital it sometimes happens that their recovery is retarded or prevented '! by worry over the fate of their families. The chief value of Dr. Bernstein's address yesterday lay in its message of hope. It may come «s a shock to some people to learn that the germs of tuberculosis are present in the body of every adult, but this fact is ! really reassuring in that it shows that iin the vast majority of cases the body 0| is strong enough to keep the germs j from doing harm, and that if this degree n of resistance could be made general, the disease would be eradicated. Accord--0 j ing to Dr. Bernstein, consumption is , not an inherited disease, but the doctor ' r ; docs not seem to have made it clear >v j whether or not a disposition to the 18 disease can be passed on. At any rate, 0I it it is not inherited, that makes the II task of the eradication much easier. '" Science te!!s us in fact that consump--0 tion can lie warded off, and that if it a does get behind the defences, it can be n dealt with there. This being so. it rests 13 entirely vi ith the community to make *" up its mind whether it will permit this *■> disease to levy its heavy toll, or y whether it will wipe it out. as a former *" age wiped out. smallpox. it