FIGHTING CONSUMPTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 31, 30 September 1912, Page 4

FIGHTING CONSUMPTION.

Speaking at the conference of sanitary inspectors recently held in Sydney, Dr. Zlotkowski expressed the .view that Biblical references to consumption indicated that it was the disease that Moses pronounced as a curse for disobedience. It was universally prevalent. From one-seventh "to one-tenth of all deaths, and a large proportion of invalidism, 'were due to it. The disease, however, was certainly on the decrease. From being the greatest scourge in the nineteenth century, when Goode estimated that one-fourth of the population, of Europe died of consumption, it had been so greatly lessened that in twenty years the rate for Germany fell 50 per cent. A decrease of 50 per cent, had taken place in England in the last forty years. It was undoubtedly preventable, and there was no reason why, if strict and Concerted measures were carried out, it should not be entirely exterminated in about forty years. The death rate in all European countries had alreadymuch diminished. There was no reason to suppose, judging from the results already obtained, that. the time should not .be, so far distant when this terrible scourge should be a- thing of the past. There should be a system; of national insurance. ; The Government .should' say to a man who had consumption: "We'll look after the 'wife and children while you are'under- ' going treatment."- If -there was such a provision, there would not "be "such , a difficulty ,in< fighting . this disease. .Consumption was- a(house disease purely. ' If people-had : always; lived in.the. open air there Would have been' no consumption, and it was due to the evils, of overcrowding and the lack of plenty of ventilation. He urged the abolition of the broom—as^ it meant st'rring iup the bacilli—m' houses, sclioolsj or streets. If streets and footpaths were flushed instead of being swept it would help the health of the community considerably. H© thought, too, that sleeping cars should he disinfected tot the end of each journey. : r '.