CONSUMPTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 246, 17 October 1928, Page 6

CONSUMPTION.

It is unusual for a serious medical journal to indulge in any form of humour. The average Briton faces death with more apparent cheerfulness than he does disease, and any gaiety of heart in a medical practitioner is commonly retained for non-professional hours. However, the "Lancet" hag let itself go for once* First 1 note this comment upon the past treatment of consumption, now happily altered. "The diagnosis of consumption presented no difficulty to the practitioner of 50 years ago. If cough, blood-spitting, wasting, niglit-sweats and hectic flush proclaimed the disease, the patient's friends were advised that he was in a state of consumptive decline, and the verdict was received as a sentence of death. The customary precautious were taken to postpone, as far r as might be, the inevitable end. The dangers of fresh air were met by closed windows whoss crevices were further sealed by crimson-covered bolsters filled with sand. The bed was screened by hnvv curtains, scarcely withdrawn to permit access to the sufferer When the end came, both doctor and relatives had the satisfaction of knowing that everything possible had been done, and bowed themselves before the mysterious dispensations of .Providence."

This is preliminary to setting forth five definite signs by which a sound and reliable diagnosis may be given, "lor," says the "Lancet," "the doctor, aware of some change in the modern attitude, remains in doubt as to the course ha Should pursue" to avoid causing groundless fears on the one Juan J, or missing early signs on the other. "Great importance has been attached to almost inpcrceptibie variations in breath sounds, and the skill of a piano-tuner demanded to determine relative changes in the pcrcussion note of the lungs. In recent years thousands of perhave been stigmatised as tuberculous and admitted to sanatoriums, where they have received treatment for non-existent disease, and been saved from a peril that never threatened." This was the charge implied in the recent report of the committee set up to inquire into the treatment of tuberculosis in New Zealand, which annoyed the experts. The doctor who formulated the five definite signs which in conjunction fix the diagnosis has "turned the hose of common sense on the sacrificial fires of •the expert," and "the practitioner whose ears had been slightly dulled by the passage of time will be grateful.".'

Dr. Calmette's book upon preventive vaccination for tuberculosis will attract much attention, and may prove to be more than a literary | success. Many heartaches would have been avoided had previous experimenters waited aft long as Dr. Calmette before publishing results. The serum. U6ed has first passed 230 attenuations, vet has proved to confer immunity upon domestic Children to be made immune were chosen from tuberculous families living in close contact with tubercular relatives, and these children were given (1921) three dose 3 of the B.G.G. serum. Of . 317 babies so treated, whose health record was followed up to 1927, 67 were born' and brought up in tubercular surroundings, and only one of these has died. Already 21,200 French children have been vaccinated with the B.C.G. anti-tubercular serum and the results will ' hfl. awaited, with, unusual interest. —TT 4 v