Our Tuberculous People

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 16, 16 April 1903, Page 1

Our Tuberculous People

We get spasms sometimes in New Zealand public life. And we generally get over them. What, for instance, has become of the spasm of activity that shook our Depaitment of Public Health some time ago in connection with the erection of consumptive sanatoria in various suitable places in the Colony ? Has it spent itself, or side-tracked its early energy in the pressure that the Government is now putting upon various municipalities for the erection of infectious diseases hospitals ? in the meantime the bacillus of tuberculosis is tunnelling away almost undisturbed, under the skin, m the bones, through the lungs, larynges, abdomens, Wrains, spinal marrow, and neck-glands of thousands of its victims, and coffining annually close on 800 of our fel-low-colonists. Over ten per cent, of all deaths in New Zealand for the past decade are due to the many and vai led forms of tubercular disease, and the greater part of its victims are in the period of fresh young manhood and womanhood, from 20 to 30 years of age The percentage of deaths is even higher in Europe. In England, during 1«97, the proportion was 19.30 per 10,000 living persons in the population (in New Zealand the avemgu rate for the past ten. years has be»n 10£ per 10,1 00). And in Paris, according to a recent return betore us, the tubercular bacillus is responsible for over

12,600 out of the 50.000 ' funeral marches to the grave ' that take place in the gayest city every year.

Hero, as in the olden lands of Europe and the unchanging East, tuberculosis is the ' ard-righ ' or overr king of all the ills that flesh is heir to. Where bubonic plague, small-pox, scurvy, typhus, and relapsing fever slay their thousands, tuberculosis kills its tens of thousands. Those diseases were for a long time the pathological terrors of mankind; but they have been almost completely banished from the surface of the earth. Medical science and actual experience in Germany, have demonstrated not alone the possibility, but the probability of consumption and all its allied disorders being extirpated also. But the problem is too vast for voluntary effort. The melancholy figures published annually in our ' YearBook ' are sufficient proof that it is a matter of national importance to grapple with it. And the crusade might Well fall within the many-sided activities of a Government which has one hand on the throttle-valve of an express engine, and with the other grades butter and cheese and slaughtered Dorkings for the Home marketlike that wonderful limb, the elephant's trunk, which can at will pile a quarter-ton of lumber or pick a number six sewing needle from the ground. General contagious diseases hospitals are not sufficient. Particular wards or special attendance in a general hospital are equally worthless. Two years ago, at the Conference on Tuberculosis in Berlin, Professor Weber said : ' For the majority of cases, treatment in sanatoria should be preferred, but for the poor it is a necessity.' And he added : ' The erection of numerous sanatoria for the people is therefore a national requirement for the cure, the prevention, and the extermination of tuberculosis.'

In this, as in every branch of Christian charity, the Catholic Church has taken an early and "prominent place. Among the first in the field with the new methods of combating tuberculosis were the Sisters of Marie-Auxih-atrice (Our Lady Help of Christians). A great consumptive sanatorium was erected by them, in the >ears 1878-80, at Villepinte, some twelve miles northreast from Paris, in the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Maximo dv Camp described it as ' the most beautiful hospital in the world.' There are over 3<)o happy patients within its broad boundary— women, girls, and young children. They have another splendid establishment for consumptives at Hyeres, and, we believe, ha\e thus far escaped the insane fury of M. Combes' policy oi expulsion France has altogether some fifteen public consumptive sanatoria, such as we need in New 'Zealand, with l.">:il beds, and twelve private establishments with 412 beds. Scotland has moved to some purpose in the matter. Switzerland started, in 1898, a National Fund for Pooi Consumptives, and (according to n lecently-pubhshed medical work before us upon the subject), the little midEuropean Republic ' bids fair to Le the best equipped hvith institutions for the treatment of the disease among the less well-to-do. 'The German Fathe.tland oi igmated the now universal ' open-air cure' or 'Nordiach treatment ' of consumption. It still leads the way, with close on forty sanatoria in which the poor aie treated free, and (since 1900) with day sanatoria for workmen In Prussia alone, the crusade against tuberculosis has had the happy result of diminishing the death late from the bum-owing bacillus from 31.4 per cent, befoie 1899 t o 21.7 per cent, in 1897.

In this matter Germany furnishes an object lesson which the New Zealand Health Department might veil l,e m more haste to follow. Several years ago, in advocating the establishment of public consumptive sanatoria in New Zealand, we said: 'Such a project would nm small risk of suffering' from lack of> j ence in New Zealand. The funds could be provided by (1) State aid <2) by public subscriptions , (3) by the formation of associations working on the lines of the " Caisse Nationale," and of the German " Societies for Convalescent Institutions " ; (t) by the contributions of benefit societies, trades unions, and life insurance companies , and (5) by the fees leceived from patients who are m a position to pay for treatment. Quettions in the realm of "higher politics" presenting far greater practical difficulties ha\e found a solution in our local Pailiament. And this is one that, in the public mteiest, deserves and should receive immediate attention and a satisfactory and permanent settlement ' Yet, still we delay and dally.