CONTROL OF CONSUMPTION

Waikato Independent, Volume XXII, Issue 2578, 29 July 1922, Page 3

CONTROL OF CONSUMPTION

(To the Editor). ►Sir, — “Enquirer” accuses me of overstating - the case when writing that in the past fifty years the death rate of tuberculosis in. England lias dropped 50 per cent. Sir William Osier Bart, M.D., F. 8.5., F.K.C.P., London, It egress Professor Medicine, Oxford University, Honorary Prof. Med. John Hopkins University, Baltimore, formerly Prof, of the Institute of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, and Professor of Clinicial Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania, Philidelplna, wrote in the eighth edition of his “Principles and Practice of Medicine*page 155, published in .1921: —“Tuberculosis is man’s most universal scourge, well deserving the epithet bestowed upon it by Bunyan of the ‘Captain of the men of Death.’ It is estimated that oneseventh of all deaths are due to it. In England and Wales there were deaths from cousurupt’on 111 1 909, There has been a remarkable reduction ill England in the death rate within the past 40 years. It has dropped 50 per cent, as shown by the following figures; 157.1-ISSO, rate per 100,000 of popular tion, 219: ISSI-IS9O, 178; 1891-1900, UJ9; 1901-1910. 117,” As Professor Asher’s figures are irrefutable it is not necessary to proceed further to prove my statement; but to further illuminate the subject let us quote Louis Bobbctt, M.D., F.K.C.S., University Lecturer in Pathology, Cambridge, from his work “The Cause of Tuberculosis,” 1917: —“The death rates per million from pulminarv tuberculosis are: France, 1788; Ireland, 1710; Germain'', 1421; Denmark, 1201; Motherlands, 11S9; Italy, .1174; Scotland, 1142; England and Wales, 1015; Belgium, 972; Ontario, 932; Australia, 700; New Zealand, 587. At the present day tuberculosis of all kinds claims in England rather more than 50,000 deaths per annum. Half it century ago the number was 05,000 —in actual numbers, and not in proportion to population. The decline in the death rate of consumption is much greater, for the population has greatly increased during that period. This decline amounts to about 50 per cent.” Turning to “Preventive Medicine and. Hygiene,” 1921, written by Professor Tioscmaiy of Harvard University—the greatest work of the kind —we find no figures, but the statement is made on page .104: —“Tuberculosis began to decline before the nature of the infection was known.” Reverting to Gobbet t: “If one looks at the ‘curvi’ formed by the annual death rate for tuberculosis for the 00 years or so since registration became general, one sees that from 1857-1807 the rate was practically stationary, but since 1805 it has been, steadily falling, and with ever increasing velocity. There is nothing to indicate the effect of the discovery of the tubucle bacillus in 1882, or of the growth of the sana torium movement which occurred about the beginning of the present century.” Matthew Hay, discussing the decline of tuberculosis in Aberdeen, says: “The decline began before the germ origin had been demonstrated by Koch; and what is more remarkable, the rats of the decline was almost'as great before any. administrative attention was being paid to its infectious character.” I Would point out do “Enquirer” that sanatorium treatment does not aim at segregation. It only concerns itself with comparatively healthy people, and it turns adrift the highly infectious amongst the community.—l am, etc., COSMOS. Cambridge, July 38, 1922.