DEBATABLE SUBJECTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1913, 9 October 1890, Page 34

DEBATABLE SUBJECTS.

PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. By R. Allan Wight. This is not a very nice heading for an article, but it is one to which much painful interest is'attached. In the older countries there seems to be a perfect furore in the efforts to suppress this most dire disease, and it has for long taken the form of stamping out diseased cattle, under the conviction that there is a microbe in the lungs of tuberculous cattle which also pervades the muscles, and is found in the milk, and that this microbe is the same that causes consumption in the human race ; some authorities evon go so far as to say that it is the sole cause. Bat their deductions are not by any means fully warranted, and many scientific* men of high standing give their opinion that the slaughter of cattle is being carried a great deal too far, and amounts to a craze. One thing is perfectly certain, and that is, that whereas consumption, in formerly hea!thy persons, is always, or nearly always, clearly to be traced to some defined, unmistakable cause, such as wet, cold, &c, and almost as clearly to a course of insufficient clothing, insufficient food, and too hard sedentary work, there is not one single case on record in which a person is known to have been thrown into a rapid decline from eating a beef-steak or drinking a pint of milk, nor yet any single instance where there is any reason to believe that any affection of the lungs ever occurred from the use of such things. To the contrary, people do habftually use both beef and milk that must have microbes in them, and do not die of consumption; and the inference is clear (as far as actual observation goes) that bovine products do not convey the disease ; else, indeed, but few men would be alive at the present day. If some of the millions of money now spent on stamping out animals wero spent on such things as flannel, coals, decent accommodation, beef, and milk for poor creatures who are not able to take care of themselves, there would be an enormous decrease in the deaths from consumption, and that decrease would be a better security from infection to the rich than the slaughter of the oxen and cows.

Our working men, when I was a boy, took the miserable pittance grudgingly spared to them by taskmasters who made fortunes from their labour ; but now, in these days of unions and strikes, working men's families have enough to eat, and know what taste beef and mutton have" by every-day experience. Their little ones, too, have warm clothes and warm shoes and stockings on their little feet, and there is a great deal less consumption amongst them, in spite of the " bovine products." That'is so far a step in the right direction ; but it is only one step, and it is to be sincerely hoped that others will be taken in the same line. We are a long way from perfection yet. There are many poor over-worked people, too weak to form unions or stand up for their dues, and it would be well if some of the strong combinations would stretch out a hand and lift up the weak. Look at the poor girls that are left destitute, with no friend in the whole wide world to help them, left to starve or sin, whilst strong men, themselves fathers and brothers, look on with indifference and see them struggle, little caring which course the poor things follow. Read Tom Hood's " Song of a Shirt," and you need no more. A poor girl starving in a wretched garret, and a vile wretch doleing out not half enough to keep her body and soul together, for labour that is hurrying her on to- the grave; and then the infamous seducer with his vile alternative. And yet no one can see and help I Few men would hesitate to throw off a coat and plunge in to save a drowning fellow creature, but where is the individual who will put his hand in his pocket? and where is the Government who will use the strength of th 9 law to crush the oppressors of such poor victims, and ensure to them food and shelter for hoEest labour ? If millions are to be spent in subduing pulmonary consumption, let it be spent at the fountain head : check its manifest causes, both in cattle and in human beings, and depsnd upon it more good will be done a hundredfold than by the present plan. How much of this consumption is owing to the prices of the labour of such classes as their merciless employers know will bear starvation ? How much of such starvation and misery is inflicted in| order that one firm may undersell another and produce an article at a ridiculously low price. Take only one example. Why need a box of matches be sold for half a penny ? Is it not worth much more that 1 or would anyone grucge giving two, three, or four times as much sooner than know that his cheap purchase was starving poor women and children ? The remedy in such cases is easy and clear : let the Governments step in and fix a minimum [ rate of wages for such classes. Then the price of the article would be raised, and thus the public would give beef and breai to those who ought to have it, and cease to live on their very life's blood. As for strong union men crying out against the employment of women and children, if they grumble at that let them marry and support the women. Let married men have higher wages than single, married men be employed first, and let the single ones (as in Persia) be taxed. Surely strong men do not want women and children to starve ?