DYING OUT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 127, 1 June 1938, Page 11

DYING OUT.

TUBERCULOSIS IN N.Z. A DOCTOR'S CONTENTION. TREATMENT OF CHILDREN. (By Telegraph.-—Own Correspondent.) . ... \ CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Tuberculosis in New Zealand is a dying disease, and if tjie proper measures were taken it could be. stamped'* out as a disease within two generations. Dr. J. Leslie Will expressed this opinion when he spoke of the treatment of crippled children at the annual meeting of the Sunlight Leapue of ,New Zealand. Dr. C. Coleridge Farr presided.

Dr. Will outlined the work being done to assist crippled children in the Dominion, and when he touched on the question of tuberculosis he said that the Sunlight League could be likened to a fence at the top of a cliff, because it played an important part in the work of prevention. It was only in recent years that those people interested in the care of crippled children had become alive to the possibilities of prevention, Dr. Will added. He referred to the organisation of the Crippled Children's Society and said that a certain foundation was growing up on which all work for the care of crippled children was based. The infectious diseases were the worst of those which caused paralysis. If the proper measures were carried out tuberculosis could be eliminated as a disease in two generations. If every case could •be isolated from children, the disease could be stamped out. Education regarding the benefits- of health camps would also assist. 4 I Stressing the decline in the incidence of tuberculosis in the Dominion, Dr. Will contended that any proposal to erect an expensive institution for the purposes of treatment should receive very careful consideration before it was implemented.