TUBERCULOSIS.
PREVENTIVE MEASURES.
(By the Department of Health.)
Arrangements are in hand by the Post and Telegraph Department for the issue of a combined postage and anti-tuberculosis stamp, already known in many countries as the Christmas seal. The central feature will be a New Zealand nurse in uniform, with a Maori border on each side. The words “Help to stamp out Tuberculosis” appear on the stamp as an indication of the purpose to which the proceeds will be applied.
The chief victims of tuberculosis are the under-nourished, the ill-fed, and over-worked among the population, and if it is to be eradicated there must be readjustment and improvement in living and working conditions. The fight against tuberculosis is, in the last analysis, a philanthropic and sociological effort rather than a medical one. Thus the supreme importance of the application of the principles of preventive medicine for the creation of a healthy race. Every factor which operates for the betterment of the physical, moral, and mental well-being of the community represents an attack on this “pestilence that walketh in darkness.” We have reasonable belief that tuberculosis has existed in the very early ages as a - disease in man in whom it exhibits various forms according to the part of the body attacked. We are thus able to divide the population, broadly speaking, into two groups, those in whom the .disease is active and those in whom it is not, or perhaps has never been ; but we know from medical examinations of numbers of people that there is a third class which very often acts as a link—a class which, while not showing definite evidence of the disease, has the danger signal up, and this class (often called the pre-tuber-cular class) has several representatives : (a) Those in whom the disease is latent through past infection ; (b) those who are physically going down hill ; (c) those who by heredity are susceptible. They exist in our schools, among our adolescents, and in the adult population. What is their fate to be ?
We are told by eminent authorities that the foundation of health is laid in the care and education of the child from its earliest infancy, nay, before, in the health and education of the parent. We have a well-organised Plunket system, which has done much for the children of New Zealand, and which deserves their deep gratitude. We have our medical inspection of schools, which is ever widening its activities for the protection of the child’s health. Safeguarding Children. We may hope surely, then, for the day when the child that is vulnerable to tuberculosis will be thoroughly safeguarded. With this object in view, such children will be protoected from possible infection in the home ; and steps must be taken to safeguard the children of tubercular parents. Difficult as this problem is, it is one of supreme importance. In some countries, France, for instance, there is a system whereby children are removed from the care of tuberculous parents and reared in a safe environment. The “Oeuvre Grancher,” as the organisation concerned is called, arranges for the boarding out of children of tuberculous parents among the French peasantry. In this way not only is the child removed from probable infection, but he is placed among surroundings which are likely to encourage in him that love of country life which is an added protection to him. The results of this system, which has now been operating in France for approximately twenty years, indicate very definitely its wisdom, for the death rate of children of tuberculous parents under this scheme has become dramatically reduced.
In subsequent articles we will deal with what has already been done to combat tuberculosis ; and what it is hoped will be accomplished in the near future through the medium of the Christmas Seal.
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Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5494, 30 October 1929, Page 2
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631TUBERCULOSIS. Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5494, 30 October 1929, Page 2
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