COMBATING CONSUMPTION.

Mataura Ensign, 6 July 1910, Page 4

COMBATING CONSUMPTION.

With reference to the conference now being held at Edinburgh to inquire into the methods of. combating consumption, it is of. interest- to note that from the earliest, times consumption has committed its,ravages, without respect to person or ; place, race or country. It is supposed to be responsible for about one-ayventh of the total mortality of Europe. For a long time medical opinion regarding consumption fluctuated. Some held it to be due to the presence in. the lung of little granuhr masses of varying size and charactnr. which were named tubercle. Othersmaintained that only a limited number of cases were to be so explained, and" that- consumption was most frequently induced by a process of chronic inflammation of tlh> lung. The popular belief in the effect of neglected cold seemed to have a basis in the latter contention. [lt was between these two main lines ■that medical opinion wa s divided, when I.Koch, in 1882, announced his discovery of the baeillus tuberculosis—an organism which he believed to be present in all cases; of consumption proper, and which is capable of cultivation outside the human body, and easy of demonstration in the expectoration of consumptive patients. It has since been generally admitted that consumption is a contagious disease. In London a dispensary campaign is being- urged against consumption. The homes and other surroundings of consumptive people are visited to see that the risk of infection is fully understood; and, where possible, to remove weakly people, who are still uncontaminated, from the risk of infection. The originators of this campaign, which seems to be lacking in the need of compulsory notification of cases, but which seems to have achieved good; results already, hope in the course of fifty years or bo to stamp out the disease. An English expert claims that the deaths from consumption could be reduced by 90 per cent, in three years, and by another 5 per cent, in less than ten years.