Treatment of Consumption.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 12, 31 January 1905, Page 3

Treatment of Consumption.

IS CONSUMPTION DANGEROUS ? NO SPIT, NO CONSUMPTION. The following extract from a circular ' issued in 1904 by the Illinois (U.S.A.) State Board of Health, will be of interest to Waimate people at the present time: — “ Hospitals for consumption are not a source of danger to the people of the .communities in which they are situated, as many people think. Oh the contrary, it has been the history of the communities about such institutions, that the number of cases of. consumption has actually decreased after their establishment. The excellent hygienic methods followed in consumptive hospitals, the preventive measures taken and the lessons taught in the dangers of infection, are observed by the people about them with the result that the development of consumption becomes less frequent. Consumption is not a contagious disease as that term is properly understood. A person may live in the same house with a consumptive, with but little possibility of contracting the disease, provided the consumptive’s sputum be properly disposed of as is done in all regularly established consumptive hospitals. “Instead of being centres from which consumption may spread, it is known that the dangers from infection are less in a consumptive hospital than in the average city or town, and thia is borne out by the fact that the infection of physicians,, nurses or attendants in these institutions' is so rare as to be said to practically never occur. The scrupulous neatness, the excellent hygienic conditions and the thorough precautions against infection from the sputum make these institutions perfectly safe for their inmates and entirely free from possibility of danger to the communities in which they are situated. *

“ As has been stated in this circular, consumptives, living under prof er conditions, are harmless; those not conducting themselves intelligently are dangerous. A colony oT consumptives living under proper sanitary regulations can harm no community. A few consumptives, ignorant of the character and prevention of the disease, can infect large numbers of persons. “ The consumptive hospital is a safe-guard and not a menace to the public.” INTERVIEW WITH Mrs BROCK. Last evening a representative of this paper waited upon Mrs Brock, of this town, and had a half-hour’s chat with that lady upon her experience of consumptive treatment and sanatoria work. Mrs Brock has had some four years’ acquaintance with both the indoor and outdoor methods of treatment, having been twelve months in the City Road Chest Hospital, London, twelve months in Dr Johns’ sanatorium, Pokesdown, Bournemouth, and twelve months in Dr Burton Fanning’s sanatorium, Norfolk. She was also a nurse in Dr Hayden Brown’s sanatorium in Hants for a considerable time, and is therefore well qualified to express an opinion on the subject. Mrs Brock said she much preferred the open-air treatment. Under this system she thought there was practically no risk of infection whatever. She had had some of the ’ worst cases under her care, and had never suffered the slightest ill effects from contact with the patients. “ Have you seen many patients cured, Mrs Brock ?” “ Well, I have seen many extreme cases arrested by the open-air treatment, under which they received much greater benefit than by the indoor system. I have ajso invariably found that patients who have experienced the benefit of the outdoor or hut system would never voluntarily revert to indoor treatment or treatment in private houses. “ What do you think of the risk of infection ?” “ I do not think that there is the slightest risk under the open-air treatment. I have known cases in which nurses in general work indoors have had to relinquish their duties, but never in the case of open-air work. Expectoration was one of the chief means of disseminating the disease. Patients treated in private’houses were at a great disadvantage, for they are not continuouly under supervision and a proper dietary system. I found the work most congenial under the openair system, and from an intimate knowledge of both the indoor and outdoor systems, I would strongly advise anyone thinking of undergoing treatment to adopt the open-air system only. Another great risk in regard to private treatment is the washing of linen indiscriminately. As far as choice of patients is concerned, I would far rather attend on consumptives under the open-air system of treatment than I would cases of scarlet fever. As regards the risk to the general public from the establishment of a sanatorium in their midst, I am certain there is not the slightest cause for fear under that head. I may say I have known gardeners with their families and other attendants in consumptive sanatoria Jiving amongst and in. daily association with the patients, and I know of not one single case of infection being caused thereby.”