THE WHITE PLAGUE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4446, 28 July 1922, Page 1

THE WHITE PLAGUE.

HEREDITARY PROBLEM IN CONSUMPTION.

A CHALLENGE TO THE EUGENISTS (By Halliday G. Sutherland, M.D., in the “Westminster Gazette.”) The modern mind is ever seeking for plain answers to complicated questions. When a doctor is asked if; consumptives should mairy he replies' that the answer depends on circumstances, which he attempts to explain - But the modern mind, impatient of all contingencies, leaves the doctor in the midst of explanations, and hastens .to the Eugenist. Now, a Eugenist is one who believes that che health of the race could be improved if, in the matter of niarriage, the free choice of men, especially’ of poor men, were constrained by positive law. Should consumptives marry ? No, says the Eugenist, they have no right to marry. The answer is important, beeause it denies to a particular ciass something that Christendom has hitherlo regarded as one of the inborn rights of; man. These rights were never held to be absolute, but Only under very serious circumstances have they ever been forfeited in the past. By murder a man forfeits his right to live, and every human right may thus be overruled by a greater right. We must therefore inquire whether there is anything in the nature of tuberculosis that warrants the denial of the right of marriage to consumptives. Coiisuinptiwii Np,t Inherited. The disease is not inherited. No chiild is born tuberculous, bu,t every tuberculous child is infected after birth;. Although the disease is not inherited, a belief, arose early in the nineteenth century that there is an inherited predisposition, without which the malady cannot develop. This belief was natural. Tuberculosis appears more often in the children than in the consort of a patient. The whole household may be exposed to infection, but the children have an innerited predisposition that is absent in the consort. At first glance that argument is convincing. As a practical test I examined the households' of 204 consumptives, some infectious and. others non infectious. Of; the children of infecti: ns parents 60 per cent, were infected, and of the children of! noninfectious consumptives 26.4 per cent, •were infected. Moreover, the .late ■ Dr. J. Edward Squire found that amongst 275 families in .which the parents were healthy 24187. per cent, of the children developed tuberculosis. These figures suggest that there is as much tuberculosis amongst children of healthy parents as amongst the children of non-infectious consumptives, that there is no inherited predisposition, and that exposure to infection is a more important cause of the malady. Disterininlng Factors. At the beginning, of the illness a patient is not infectious. Later on his expectoration contains tubercle bacilli, and thus the careless consumptive scatters infection. Now, of those who are inflected some will remain healthy, bu.t others will develop the disease. To some extent the amount of infection determines the result, because the disease is more likely to follow infection by a large than by a small number of tubercle baeil i. Another determining factor is the natural resistance of the body. Children are most susceptible to infection, and the resistance of adults increase with: years. That, is why the disease appeals more often in the children than in the consort of; a tuberculosis patient. Again, assuming tnat all are equally exposed to Infection, those who are wAI housed, well fed. and in good healtm have a greater resistance than those who are half, starved, overcrowded, and whose health is poor. For that reason the amount of tuberculosis amongst the poor is four times' greater than amongst the rich. There is massive infection when a child is reared by a mother with advanced disease. She cough*, and the aid around her is sprayed with droplets of secretion containing tubercle bacilli. This air the child bqeathes. Millie ns of bacilli are deposited on the skin and clothing, and are carried to the mouth by the hands. She coughs over the child’s’food. Eveiything. including tihe table utensils, io infected, and the child swallows infection at every meal. Again, when a husband is consumptive, the disease is a serious handicap in his work. He loses time and employment through sickness, his family tend to become poorer, and their resistance to the infection, of which he is the source, is lowered. When anyone is suffering from tuberculosis, a sanatorium is better than a honeymoon, and the patient should defer marriage until the disease has been well healed, as proved by the lapse of two years without a recurrence. In that event there is no serious reason why a cured consumptive should not mai Iy. A Mcnlcrn Heresy. No one who is suffering from tuberculosis should marry. Now, marriage is the last thing on which humanity will accept advice, and there are many imprudent consumptives. The Eugenist maintains that because imprudent patients will marry no consumptive should be allowed .to marl y. That illustrates a great modern herc- | gy—namely, that because some men choose evil rather than good no man should be allowed to chcosc at allBecause one man may become . a drunkard all men shall abstain. , Nevertheless, if predisposition and infection from parents were the only causes of tuberculosis Eugenists could argue that if these marriages weie

forbidden the disease would disappear. Now, over 90 per cent, of the adult population have been infected by the bacilli, and yet all do not develop the disease. Those who live overcrowded in our industrial and rural shims are most vulnerable.. And parents are not the only source of infection Thousands of gallons of tuberculosis milk are sold every day. Even if a Super-Eugenist, greatly daring were to slay every consumptive in the land to-night, we should breed the disease afrfe&h before tomorrow’s morn.