TUBERCULOSIS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 34, 9 August 1934, Page 17

TUBERCULOSIS

NATIONAL CAMPAIGN

CLEARANCE OF SLUMS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) , ; LONDON, June 21. The annual conference of the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis which was opened by Lord Snell, chairman of the London County Council, marked twentyone years' effort to combat tho scourge on national lines.

Lord Sriell.'described tuberculosis as a. disease of the slums. The pxoblcin not ono for doctors alone. The social engineers had their part to play in finding a solution. . Sir Edward Hilton Young, Minister of Health, saia that the number of deaths from the respiratory forms of the disease fell from 39,232 in 1911 to 27,855 in 1933, and the mortality rate per thousand of the population hacl fallen from 1.08 to 0.69, while for other forms of tuberculosis tho number of deaths had fallen from 23,888 in ,1911 to 5405 in 1933.. •■ "If the efforts to combat tho disease are tho spearhead," declared Sir Hilton, "there is the shaft —a hotter standard of living, higher wages, better j health measures and other things. All j have exorted an influence, on this de- j dining disease.' 5- • Another great aid was the national campaign to end tho evil of the slum and to provide better housing for tho people. "It is not only in; the slums that tuberculosis takes its rise, but I think almost always, when you trace it back you find it associated with some form of bad housing. The disease marches out of the slums and would reinfect the country. There can be no final success for this great campaign, however magnificent may be the results it has achieved, \mtil you remove those sources of its creation and reinfection in the slums." . .'■■'■'■ HOPE AND ENCOURAGEMENT. Progress in London was discussed _by Dr. N. D. Bardswell, principal assistant medical officer of the- London County Council. "The tuberculosis administrative crusade of the past twenty-one.years," lie declared, "has been a veritablo Magna Cart.it. I do not suppose that ii\ respect of facilities- for treatment any body of sick persons in London has during the past twenty-one years gained as much as those suffering from tuberculous disease." Referring to the ebb and flow of treatment by tuberculin, he said that like a transient Stock Exchange boo7ii, this treatment gradually faded away, until today it was not seriously considered. Ho and others obtained the same measure of tuberculin, but retaining to the full the rites of tho inoculation, the atten- j dant nurses, the sterilising of the skin and apparatus, the careful measuring of the dose—in fact, all of what George Borrow would term the mumbo-jumbo of tho business. . , "As is so often the ense with new: methods of treatment, faith in its valuo < conveyed. from the physician to the patient was the activating principle tor good As' tho enthusiasm of ■ the physician waned the potency of the remedy waned with it. "I have never hesitated to give patients any form of treatment, not excluding quack remedies, in which they may have faith, provided they art), harmless," added Dr. Bardswell. 1 have found it a sound-principle not to press on a patient a treatment he does not fancy, or to refuse him tho trial of a treatment on which, ho has set his heart. . ' ' . , "What tho tuberculous patient needs first and foremost is encouragemont, hope, and confidence. Withf these almost anything is possible; without, precious little. This, I think, is. the rather valuable lesson to be drawn from the tuberculin episode.". Sir John Robertson, Professor orPublic Health in Birmingham University quoted figures which indicated that mortality from nil forms of -tuberculosis was two and three-quarter times iis great among the unskilled as among Hie middle class, and- tliat the ■■ mortality among skilled artisans was nearly double that of the upper and micUllo classes. This uneven distribution called for eiirefill investigation. It might bo duo to ignorance, or carelessness; _bul; his experience of tho lower workingclasses was that they could bo instructed in health matters, but that the process was tedious, and required .moreltact than was possessed' by most of them. •'. • ■' • •- ■ ' ' * -