SCATTERED BROADCAST'

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 99, 23 October 1913, Page 2

SCATTERED BROADCAST'

WHITE PLAGUE IN AUCKLAND. SOME APPALLING FACTS. AUCKLAND, 22nd October. "The white plague is being eown and scattered broadcast over Auckland," said Dr. Florence Keller at a. meeting of the Hospital Board last night, when ,bringing forward, a motion to the effect that a site be immediately secured for a suitable home for tubercular patieate. Dr. Keller explained the urgent need for such a home, and related appalling facts -which had recently come under her notice. In a small fruiterer's shop in. Pon-' eonby she found a young girl in an advanced stage of the disease. The girl's sole attendant was her mother, who would carry out rags used by the girl for expectoration purposes, burn them in the kitchen grate, and then, with "tubercular germß literally teeming from her finger-tips, go into the shop and sell a child a penny apple, which he immediately eate." Another example was related by the doctor. The tubercular subject in this case was the daughter of a boarding-house-keeper. When Dr. Keller 6aw her she was ov-er some vegetables which she was preparing for the boarders' meals, and coughing immoderately. In another instance a woman in an advanced Gtage of tuberculosis was living in a small cottage with an aged mother and six children, who must necessarily be infected with the germe. The motion was carried.