CURE FOR CONSUMPTION

Grey River Argus, 18 April 1929, Page 2

CURE FOR CONSUMPTION

DEATH RATE DOWN BY HALF IN FORTY YEARS.

Conquest and cure of tuberculosis in its early stages is an accomplished fact, according to Dr. F. Leonard Keith, medical officer at Bethnal Green. Lecturing at the Winter School for Health Visitors and School Nurses, at Bedford College for Women, London, Dr. Keith stated that the death rate from tuberculosis had dropped 40 or 50 per cent in the last 40 years. “If” h e continued, “we find a case in an early stage—and by modern diagnostic methods this can easily be detected, provided people will come to us—the disease is qui e curable.” The death rate in. women had improved more than in men. “But this death rate has changed not only in sex, but in age, and death tends to be in the younger periods of rather than the middle-aged,” he added. He attributed the decline in mortali v verv largely to the improved standards of modern living. Where wages were lowest the death rate was highest. Di. Koith the five prent barriers which are still to be broken down as:— » Defective notification since the

ascertaining of cases is both incoA plete and in many instances too late. Poverty. Bad housing conditions, which reduce the convale°cent’s chance of recovery and facilitate the spread of the disease among the family. Milk, the staple food of childhood, may contain living tuberculosis bacilli, for which pastuerisation would be an effective sateguard, and the industrial barrieq® creating the difficulty of reabsorbi;.|p into industry persons capable of only part time employmen*, and then but intermi. tently. There was a good deal of uunecessary nervousness on the part of many people over tuberculosis, remarked Dr. Keith. The majority of people who had the disease were not infectious; the publicity about it should dweV not «o much on its risks, as its cur* bility if taken in time. Ba y Bros, are the only manufactuiers of Pasteurised Milk on the West Ring Phone 411 and they wiU call.