THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1912. THE WHITE PLAGUE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 14 November 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1912. THE WHITE PLAGUE.

Tho statistics of New Zealand show that cancer and tuberculosis are spreading with alarming rapidity in tho Dominion. The former disease has so far defied medical skill. Neither prevention nor euro have been discovered, and the victim of the terrible affilict-ion must needs resign himself or herself to the inevitable. Tuberculosis, on the other hand, can not only be prevented by a strict observance of tlie rides of sanitation and cleanliness, but it may, in its incipient stages, bo absolutely cured. Notwithstanding this fact, it is alarming to think that not only in New Zealand, but in every part of the British Empire, the scourge of consumption is working havoc among tho people. In a lecture recently delivered at Auckland, Dr E. H. M. Milsom dwelt upon tho financial loss to tho country from the ravages of the disease. He stated that in England and Wales alone the capital cost from consumption was as high as £26,000,000 per annum. Dr Arthur Latham had said that the deaths from tuberculosis were a greater drain upon the national resources than any war had been to England. Quoting Dr Newsholme, tho lecturer stated that if tho 1 earning capacity of the 33,310 workers annually lost to the Stato in England and Wales were put as low as £1 per week, the sum lost would be £1,633,380 a year, and this capitalis- ' ed meant over £.50,000,000. Dealing with the spread of the disease in New Zealand, Dr Milsom said: "leaking as a basis the assumption that one in 250 of tho general population was recognisably consumptive there would be -1000 in New Zealand, including the children, or 2800 excluding them, ranking as incapacitated workers. Putting their earning capacity at £2 per week the yearly loss to the Dominion was over £200.000. which sum, capitalised at b per cent, meant a. lost capital of over £7.000.000." The«o figures, from a financial stand-

poifcit alone, are sufficiently impressive to create consternation in the minds of the public. When it is remembered that last year 0110 death in eleven in the Dominion was due to tuberculosis. one will appreciate tlio extent to which the ravages of this disease have spread. That it is highly infectious is accepted by medical authority. It would not appear, however, to be hereditary, for Dr Mil&om says ; "The prevalence of consumption in certain families is due to tlio greater risk of infection to which, the members are subjected when one of them lias fallen a victim to the diHoa.se. What U is that the public should bo roused to a fiense of its responsibility in tho matter, not by an alarmist campaign but by calm and serious consideration of the dreadful ravages being made by the disease, and of tho methods by which it may be checked and stamped out." Tt would bo well if the •Government were to furnish charts for use in.'"every school, and for exhibition in railway carriages and other public places, giving information concerning tho methods to be adopted for the prevention and cure of the disease. Tlio Health Department is, we are pleased to know, already co-operating with the Hospital and Charitable Aid Boards in the institution of a crusade against -tho "white plague"; but, to bo effective, the public must be aroused to a sense of individual rej sponsibility in tho matter. ,