TREATING TUBERCULOSIS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4906, 23 November 1925, Page 4

TREATING TUBERCULOSIS

OPEN AIR EFFECTIVE. SOUTHERN DOCTOR’S.ADVICE. “If measures could be taken to prevent the children of ,the present generation from contracting it, there will be very little tuberculosis in the next generation,” declared Dr. G. Blackmore, superintendent of the Cashmere Consumptive Sanatorium, when he made a plea for fresh air and sunshine at the opening of an open air school at Cashmere (Christchurch). “As president of ,the Open Air Schools Association I am naturally very pleased to see this open air ischool opened,” said Dr. Blackmore. Some difficulty had been experienced in obtaining the school, but! the residents’ success showed that if they persisted they would have another school. BENEFIT OE. SUNSHINE. - Two of the functions of the Fresh Air Home to prevent children contracting their parents’ consumptive disease, were to keep the children in the open , air by day and night, and fo give them adequate sunshine. Twice a day the whole of the body was exposed to the sunshine, because it had been proved that the browning of the skin of white people conferred a great prevention against tuberculosis? STATE SCHOOLS AT FAULT. Many other such children received education at ,the ordinary State schools. “ What are these State schools doing to prevent these children from developing *their parents’ disease ? ” asked Dr. Blackmore. You have, not’to go outside .these grounds to find an answer to the question. You have only to go into thio schoolroom (the permanent building) where the children get so li.ttle fresh air and sunshine foi - five hours a day, on five days ’of the week.” Most of the schools fostered the development of the disease. THE FRESH AIR WAY. If fresh air was necessary at school it was more necessary at home, but some parents did not realise this. In many streets in the city they would find the windows unopened. “ The whole injstinct of the child is for the out-of-doors,” continued Dr.' Blackmore. If the instinct was repressed in childhood the child would follow its parents. The lessons taught in childhood were the things that stuck. ‘‘You may rest assured that if you start the child in the fresh air way he will, not forget it. ■. If measures could be taken to prevent the children of the present generation from contracting tuberculosis there 1 will be very .little of the disease in the next generation.”