FIGHTING CONSUMPTION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 4925, 15 January 1902, Page 2

FIGHTING CONSUMPTION.

Dr. Ogston, of tbe Health Department, was in Lawrenoe at the end of last week and, in company with Dr Newell, visited tbe Beaumont with the object of acquainting himself by personal inspection and inquiry as to the suitability of that district for providing a site for a sanitarium for consumptive patienta From what we canJearn, Dr Ogston was very favorably impressed wit b the nature of the-condi-tions offered by the Beaumont and, it is understood, he will recommend it as the district in the South Island in which such an institution is to be established, the decision of the Governmenl being to establish one sanitarium in the North Island and another in the South for the treatment .of consumption. The first essential of a sanitarium is accessibility, the second is that the soil ~ must be good, and the other essentials must be sunshine, a flight rainfall, and, if possible, a good altitude. All these requisites Beaumont possesses in a very fair degree. It is less than a day's journey from Dunedin. The soil also is specially adapted for the purpose named, being shingly and therefore capable of always presenting a thoroughly dry surface. In all the other respects mentioned ib fulfils the required conditions and will in all probability be finally selected by the Health Department and recommended to the Government. Of course there are many other excellent sites in the South Island and especially in Otago, and as the cost of erecting a sanitarium will be something like £20,000 or £30,000 the difficulty will be not so much in selecting. a good site as in selecting tbe best one* - It has now been very clearly established that consumption is a curable disease, and In setting up the Health Department, which is commissioned to establish sanitaria provided with all tfie most modern means of treating the disease, the Government have conferred, an in* calculable benefit on the colony. Discussing the treatment of consumption with a newspaper reporter in Christchurch a few days ago Dr Mason, the chief medical officer of the Health Department, said it is an absolute truth that if the sputum could be destroyed the disease would be gradually stamped out and at the end of twenty years there would not be a single case of con* sumption in the colony unless it was an inherited one. The whole colony will be cleared from end to end, as the sputum is practically the only means of contagion. The principal thing, he added, was to get the incurable consumptives well under control and prevent indiscriminate expectoration. Up to the present time consumptives have been allowed to wander at large to the constant danger of the public health. And yet, so dense was the ignorance : that prevailed on the subject of this disease and tbe manner in which infection was carried about, that not only were no precautions taken to protect the public, but no attempt was made to instruct or enlighten consumptives who were accustomed to expectorate indiscriminately wherever they went. This, of course, was owing to the general ignorance that prevailed on the subject. Consumptives were regarded as people for whom there was no hope and neither their cure nor the prolongation of their lives was ever seriously entertained. But what was even infinitely worse, nothing was 'done to prevent the infection that must have been spread about wholesale owing to the freedom of habit allowed them. One of the most serious difficulties we should say which the Health Department will have to contend against will be the number of consumptives arriving in the colony from abroad. It is now very generally held, that their number is very considerable and unless measures are taken to prevent their landing in the colony and being absorbed by the population a good deal of the work of the Health Department must be productive of little good. Such a step on the part of the Government would be fully justified and the sooner it is taken in hand the better it will be for the health of the colony.