The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1912. TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 29, 27 September 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1912. TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION.

A report on consumption was recently presented to the Wellington Hospital, Board by. a special committee. recommending the adoption of an anti-tuber-culosis propaganda, the more rigorous examination, of immigrants, home and sanatorium treatment/ and compulsory segregation of cases in certain circumstances. Referring to the discussion on this report Wellington “Post” states that apart from the views expressed by Medical Superintendent, not much wisdom was displayed. Attention was directed to the enormous and increasing cost of the preventive and curative methods adopted,in New Zealand—and their apparent futility. His figures for Wellington district showed that 4G6 patients in five years had cost £40,000, and of this the patients themselves had contributed but £lB35 —and the results were doubtful because the patients discharged had not been kept in sight. There was much made of the immigrant consumptive. That ho docs find an entry to the Dominion there can be no doubt, but it was not proved in the report that port medical inspection in New Zealand was lax in this respect. The report does show that in the Seddon ‘Hospital, of the 242 patients 108 were native born and the remainder were not, but surely, the Wellington paper remarks it is possible for the robust immigrant, either as a baby or an adult, to have contracted the disease in New Zealand. It is stated as a> matter of fact that 10 per cent, of, the 242 entered the hospital within two years of their arrival in New Zealand, but these figures are not sufficiently enlightening on the important question of consumptive immigrants. During the discussion no reference, was made to the co-operation which the Department of Agriculture could afford, and the “Post” holds it could tell a great deal about the spread of the disease. Interesting as the report was, the solution of the problem is still far off', although something certainly should be possible with the machinery already at our disposal.