CHILDREN AND TUBERCULOSIS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3614, 17 March 1927, Page 1

CHILDREN AND TUBERCULOSIS

“The testing of school children for tuberculosis is the biggest advance that has yet been made in any country,” said Dr. G. J. Blackmore, General Superintendent of Tuberculosis Institutions, at Christchurch on Thursday, reports the “Star.” “If 'the infected children are treated, one generation or a generation and a half will see tuberculosis reduced to a negligible quantity, and an enormous amount of suffering saved on the part of those children who would have grown up with the disease.” About 1000 children in Christchurch had been tested, Dr. Bla'ckmore said. The scheme had been started also in tlm Wellington schools, and it was proposed to make the testing Dominion wid'e. It was a non-in-jurious test conducted by th# School of Hygiene, Department of Health. He had urged that treatment should be given to all children infected. There were many delicate tests which showed which children were infected with tuberculosis. This did not mean that they had the disease, hut that the germs had entered the body and 1 would react in later life. It was necessary to get rid of the infection, for even though Nature often stifled the infection in children, it was not known which children would become well again and which would not.