THE WHITE PLAGUE."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 840, 11 June 1910, Page 4

THE WHITE PLAGUE."

A SYSTEM OP EARLY DETECTION,

Speaking to a. Doitwioif reporter yesterday the Hon. 6. Fowlds stated that the Government was expecting the Hospital Boards under the new regime to be more alive than ever in regard to everything that will secure the best 'health of the community. It was now proposed to adopt, in connection with the larger hospitals, a system under which tuberculosis would" be detected in its very early stages. He for one believed that anything that would tend to arrest the Vavages of that diseasa by treatment and isolation in the early stages was highly desirable. The Hospital Boards down south, he under-, stood, were joining forces for this purpose. The Otago Board had got a very line property in the neighbourhood of Palmerston South, and the Southland and South Canterbury Boards were joining in with them to have their patients treated at the Otago institution. If this were dona it would all make for economy and get over the difficulty that had hitherto existed of patients having been kept waiting ir tirder to gain admittance to some institution at' a distance. North Canterbury, as was well known, had ah institution on the fort Hills, whilst •at Otaki, Wellington had a sanatorium. Then, again, there was the big sanatorium" at Cambridge, which was doing such good work. Other boards" had either erected consumptive annexes oi were building them in the vicinity' of hospitals in their districts for the treatment of patients. In his opinion, the State and boards were now doing as much as could be expected with a view to coping with the dread disease.