CURE FOR CONSUMPTION

Grey River Argus, 29 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. P. Leonard Keith, medical officer at Bethnal Green. Lecturing at the Winter School foi 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” he 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 nnw tends to be in the younger periods oi life rather than the middle-aged,” he added. He attributed the decline in mortali y very largely to the improved standards of modern living. Where wages were lowest the death ra;e was highest. Dr. Keith defined the five great barriers which are still to be broken down as:— Defective notification since the

ascertaining of cases is both incoik plete and in many instances too late. Poverty. Bad housing conditions, which reduce the convalescent’s chance of recovery and facilitate the spread of the disease among the famil. . Milk, the staple food of chili hood, may contain living tube# culosis bacilli, for which pastueris’. tion would be an effective een guard, and the industrial barrier, creating the difficulty of reabsorbing into industry persons capable of uUlj part time employmen*, and then but intermittently. There was a good deal of unnecessary 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 dwel? not so much on its risks, as its curt bility if taken in time. Ba y Bros, are the only manufacturers of Pasteurised Milk on the West '"’oast. Ring Phone 411 and they will call.