THURSDAY, MARCH 9, l905. THE ANTI=COMSUMPTION CRUSADE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10, 9 March 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1905. THE ANTI=COMSUMPTION CRUSADE

<s^p % ORD CADURCIS, in Disraeli's found k\\\lT death a great ' bothere r-' " He comes in a FjittlJL llhausalld vaiicd shapes— with more disguises <jy^^> than Corney Grain— and lets life out by all j(W manner of strange exits. In New Zealand Ip^t*? tuberculosis is the door that he opens most iraJK freqv.enLly to let the imprisoned sdul take e^"* wing. Pulmonary consumption alone dissolves the life-long partnership between eight hundred pairs of souls and bodies in this country every year. Their money value has been estimated at about £210,000. But this represents only a part of the nation's loss. The regiment of consumptives that flit from among us every year— generally before the meridian of life is reached— represent but a fraction of those among our population that are suffering from the inroads of the poison-dealing bacillus of tuberculosis Their wealth-producing power is seriously impaired by the deadly distillations of the fungoid enemy within them. In the case of the poor it means a resort to lighter work— which also means lighter pay and retrenched comforts. And then chafing idleness, and thepinch of poverty, and the long-coming release that sends them to slumber with the dead..

Tho Waikato Sanatorium at Cambridge marked the beginning of the State-aided campaign against consumption in New Zealand. In a recent paper on ' The Duty of the State towards Consumption,' Dr. Mason, the Chief Health Officer for New Zealand, strongly (deprecated, however, the tendency to lean upon the Government in the crusade against consumption. He advocated more of organised effort by local or individual units. Here are his specifications for the machinery required for an effective campaign against the prolific and deadlyparasite of consumption :—: —

' (1) There should be adequate accommodation For all persons suffering from the disease. I don't mean by this that all should be housed in institutions. (2) There

should be some regulation by which the true amount of the diteease "existing in the country can be obtained such as oorrtpulsory notification. (3) There should be careful and observation of all foodsttuffs likely to transmit the disease. (4) There should be efficient disinfection or destruction of all matters likely to convey the disease from one animal to another. (5) There should be legal machinery by which such aids to health b,s ample air spa>ce, prevention of o\ercrowdine etc may be broirght into operation.' '

Dr. Mason (says the report) ' asked medical men to join hands in instilling into the community d t large the ease with which the disease could be stopped.' A society was established for the prevention of tuberculosis. We cordially wish it success in its work, and hope that the crusade against tuberculosis will in due timo make that disease as rare among our population as Asiatic leprosy, which, during the middle ages, was s-uch a scourge to the nations of middle and southern Europe.