TUBERCULOSIS AND ALCOHOL

Hokitika Guardian, 5 August 1931, Page 8

TUBERCULOSIS AND ALCOHOL

(Contributed b,v the Department of Health). Many years ago, Sir William Osier drew the parallel between infection in tuberculosis and the parable of the Sower, as illustrating in an effective way the importance of the nature ol •he ground upon which the seed fails. “Some seeds fell by the wayside and the fowls of the air came and devoured them up.” These are the bacilli scattered broadcast outside the body, an immense majority of which die. “Some fell upon stony places”. These are the bacilli that find lodgment in many of us perhaps with the production of a small focus, but nothing comes of it; then wither away because they have no root. “Some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.” This represents the cases of tuberculosis, latent or active, in which the seed finds the soil suitable and grows, hut the conditions arc not favourable, /as the thorns, representing the protecting force of the body get the better in the struggle, “Tint others fell on good ground and sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold.” Of this fourth group belong the 649 who died from this disease and hundreds of others who did not die but whose health was greatly damaged, in 1930 in New Zealand—the soil, suitable, the protecting forces feeble. Now what makes a good soil for tuberculosis. Surely it is an infant or child suffering from malnutrition. Such children come from an unsuitable environment, as a home where there are unsanitary habits, had food, and ill ventilated rooms: conditions , found i' l Trsrc degree, in the homes o‘ persons addicted to alcohol or excess in other directions. The influence of environment was never better demonstrated than in the well known experiment of Trudeau, who found that rabbits inoculated with tuberculosis if confined in a dark damp place without sunlight and fresh air rapidly succumbed; whit - others treated in the same way, but allowed to run ” : l i '-pUer recovered or showed very slight lesions. The influence of environment is also shown in the results achieved in health camps for children suffering from malnutrition where they are restored under conditions that should be the natural heritage o.‘ every child. TJfrirefore, cjhiidren reared amidst unhygienic surroundings, the product of excessive alcoholic drinking of their parents, or from other causes, may easily become the prey to tuberculosis which readily attacks tbe physically weak and neglected child. Parents addicted to drink as a rule are more prone to this disease for alcohol certainly stands in a. causative relationshin to tuberculosis : and the 'offspring of such tend to be more unstable and less durable than the offspring of healthy parents. Of course, the abuse of -alcohol is only a part of the picture,