The Waikato Argus [PUBLISHED DAILY.] A Guaranteed Circulation of over 8500 Weekly. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1908

Waikato Argus, Volume XXV, Issue 3943, 23 November 1908, Page 2

The Waikato Argus [PUBLISHED DAILY.] A Guaranteed Circulation of over 8500 Weekly. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1908

An International Congress to deal with the question of tuberculosis was held recently in Washington. Prolessor Fisher, of Yale University, gave some startling statistics. He estimated that 5,000,000 people living in the United States are doomed to death by consumption. He said that his reason for parading such alarming figures was in order to illustrate the folly of the country in refusing to recognise the economic necessity of spending gigantic .sums in lighting the disease. Consumption, he stated, killed 138,000 people in America annually, and cost the country £200,000,000 yearly. The death roll from tuberculosis was equal to those from typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria, meningitis, diabetes. smallpox, and cancer together. From these premises the professor drew the deduction that it would be wise economy for the community to invest X 1,000,000 in lighting the disease instead of a fraction of 1 per cent, of that amount which is now expended. We are, of course, unable either to endorse or reject the professor's figures; but there is no doubt but that the evil is very great, and that it is exceptionally so in the United States is very largely due to the unhealthy atmosphere to which the stoves in common use bring that of the living rooms of the people.

J Nobody in this country requires to turn to official statistics to be assured that the disease is very prevalent and claims many victims every year. We have established sanatoria, and have partially adopted the open-air treatment at some of our hospitals. As regards the former institution, patients are received into them and treated as skilfully, perhaps, as is possible. The weak and fatal spot in the system, however, is that those patients whose cases arc proved hopeless are turned loose to fare as best they can amongst the rest ot the population. Possibly the only home open to them is that from which they were removed for treatment. There can be only one result from this system, and that is that the discharged incurable will in all probability communicate the disease to one or more of the family circle. Disguise the fact as we may by specious language, there is only one means of stamping out tuberculosis, and that is by the complete isolation of those who are suffering from the | disease. This system is adopted in I the case of plague or small pox and J other ills. There is this difference,

however, between consumption and other infectious diseases—the former may last for an indefinite period, but the others in a limited time either kill the patient, or are banished from his system, when he is no longer dangerous. It is impossible but to feel the greatest sympathy with sifferers from tuberculosis and an earnest desire to alleviate their sufferings. The fact, however, is not disputed that isolation is the only means of stamping out the disease. Anything short of this is only a palliative so far as the patients themselves are concerned. At the sanatorium in this district there is plenty of land upon which to set up a system of isolation, and it is our opinion that incurable patients, instead of being turned loose upon society, should be removed to the other hide of the hill and as humanely treated as is compatible with the safety of the reU of the population. From the fiscal poii t of view taken up by the American professor, we believe that in the end rigid isolation would be strict economy, costly though it might prove in the first instance.