Home Treatment.

Otago Witness, Issue 3061, 13 November 1912, Page 5

Home Treatment.

The ultimate success of the campaign against- tuberculosis depends essentially on the thoroughness with which treatment is carried out in the homes of those who are afflicted, because all sanatorium patients must look forward to the time when they will return to their own homes. Patients do not go into sanatoria to die; neither are they allowed to stay there until they are completely cured. They go there in order to learn a system of hygiene and treatment which they are afterwards to carry out in their own homes, and which, above all, they are to impress on the other inmates, on whom, by reason of a faulty inheritance or of contact with the disease, it is especially incumbent that they should lead healthy, rational lives, and so build up their constitutions for struggling against and destroying the dread bacillus. If the consumptive merely looks on the rules and methods of the sanatorium as go many hateful restrictions which are temporarily necessary in order to effect a cure, and which are to be thrown to the winds as soon as he quit* the institution, then the whole object of the system will fail, and the sanatorium will simply become a hothouse for keeping alive undesirables, and

in a shelter in the garden, which is pre ferable to a tent.

The shelter should be open all round under the roof, and should either* be movable or should have its sides opening in such a way that they can be arranged for protection from the prevailing winds. The patients must be taught to spit into paper receptacles, tins, or bottles, whioh are to be dest roved or boiled every day. The patient’s dishes, utensils, and spoons, forks, etc., should be of a different make from those of the other members of. the family, so that they will not get mixed, and should be boiled after each meal. No kissing or close personal contact should take place with the patient, and no one should sleep in the patient’s room. If these precautions are carried out properly there is practically no of infection.

In the case of breadwinners, however, it is better that they should be prevented by law from fallowing occupations which involve the handling of food or clothing for other people. Another very important point in preventing infection is that no food should be left lying uncovered after meals, that the milk, meat, etc., should be kept in cool safes, and that proper means should b« employed for the destruction of house flies. The patients’ food should be light and nourishing, and should contain a good oroportkm of easily-

digestible fats, such as baeon, cream, b'itter, and also raw eggs and raw meat juice. The patient should be encouraged to take 4xercise ever}' day in the form of walking, gentle hill-climbing, light outdoor games, gardening, etc., as prescribed for him. He must always change his underclothing when it gets damp from perspiration, and after exercise he must always rest before taking a meal. He must never sit down hot or tired to a meal, and he must always rest for 20 minutes after meals. He must avoid tobacco and alcohol, and should retire to bed early. On rising in the morning he should carry out a few simple breathing exercises in the open air, taking care to expand the lungs as fully as possible. It would be well for healthy people to carry out all these rules; but by the consumptive they must never be transgressed. Various methods of procuring open-air sleeping accommodation are shown in th® illustrations.