TUBERCULOSIS PROBLEMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22250, 26 October 1935, Page 15

TUBERCULOSIS PROBLEMS

"LEFT IN BACKGROUND" AN AWAKENING APPARENT [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] NEW PLYMOUTH, Friday That the problems of tuberculosis harl j in recent years been forced into the i background by tho war on the more | malignant cancer was stated to-day by | Dr. C. A. Taylor, physician at the Now j Plymouth Public Hospital, who has rej turned after a year in Britain and on | the Continent "It is apparent, howjever," he said, "that people are now | becoming more alive to thc.se problems, j "In Great Britain, for instance, | greater attention is being paid to special j tuberculosis schemes, particularly in | Wales and the .Midlands. London has | always had a good organisation for j treating tuberculosis, including the formation of outdoor dispensaries in convenient parts of the city, away from the hospitals. These dispensaries work in close co-operation with the private practitioners. The outlook for patients now is verv much happier than it was 10 or 15 years ago." Dr. Taylor commented on the way in which patients co-operated with the doctors m their methods of treatment, and said the methods used stressed the new operative procedures in combination with the well-established and wellproven efficacy of sanitorium treatment in towns and town hosiptals. \\ ith a party of British medical men Dr. Taylor went to DenmarK to study medical methods there. The Danes, he said, had found an extremely high incidence of tuberculosis growing in their agricultural country. There was a feeling that human infection was contributed to by cattle infection, more especially now than before. The result was that there was an intensive investigation and more intensive methods were adopted in tracing infection. This was more easily handled in the eastern portion of the country than in Jutland, where black and white cattle were kept for meat purposes. There the infection of the individual cow was more difficult to trace, because of the constant changing of herds. "The Danes consider it is possible for consumptive cattle to produce consumption in human beings," said Dr. Taylor. "This work, however, is still under close investigation and has not been completed." Asked his opinion on the proposals to establish tuberculosis clinics throughout the hospital hoard districts in New Zealand, Dr. Taylor said it was a move that was long overdue. It seemed that the fight against tuberculosis had been left in the background. ,