Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1881-08-31
CONSUMP TION CONTA-
GIOUS?

nounce the steady approach TO TINS
country-say from China-of an ill-un-
derstood, painful and usually fatal mall
adv, which if once established among
us would certainly kill half million
of our citizens every year and ultimate
ly carry of one in every five of the en-
tire population, it is safe to presume
that the announcement would not be
calmly received As one man, physi-
clans not less strenuously than laymen,
we should demand the most rigorous
quarantine against the infected coun-
try. No effort would be accounted too
heroic, no precaution too costly, to
shield our country from so disastrous
an invasion And if there were any
doubt as to the specific nature of the
threatened plague or of the mode of its
transmission or inception, neither our
medical and sanitary societies nor the
government would rest until competent
commissions were sent to investigate
the matter 1t would be accounted
criminal Indifference on the part of
medical and sanitary authorities to
neglect to make concerted and persist
ent effort to discover the causes and
conditions of the plague, and how to
protect the community from it's rava-
ges or to cure its victims when attack
| ed.
Would the urgency of the case be di-
minished in any respect by the circum-
stance that the supposed invasion had
already become fact accomplished ?
At first thought any one would re-
ply: Not in the least; rather the con-
trary; for the evil in the latter case
would be actual, not threatened merely,
and the loss or saving of half million
lives year is matter of the gravest
national Importance. Yet it is a sim
gular fact that while we should be
thrown into panic if half million
lives were threatened by new disease,
we accept as inevitable, almost with
Indifference, the certain killing of that
number of people every year by an old
and familiar. malady And our medi-
cal authorities tell us, without twinge
of professional pride, that they really
do not know positively how consump-
tion is induced and transmitted, or
whether it is communicable from the
sick to the well or not and worse yet,
they confess without blushing that
| they do not contemplate any special or
general effort to have such momentous
| questions critically investigated
When half million of discontented
natives of Europe throng to our shores
in single year we do not fail to ap-
preciate the Importance of the gain,
both immediate and prospective. When
larger number of our own citizens are
cut off untimelv by disease which,
while it destroys them, transmits q
| legacy of sickness and too often early
| death to their descendants, we mourn
our Individual losses, but make no ade-
quate effort to put an end to the ma
tional loss by urging or aiding the sci
| entifc determination of its conditions,
causes and remedies Already one in
| every FIVE of our population dies of con-
sumption, and the indications are that
| the conditions of our civilization tend
to increase the death rate from this
cause. If the disease is infectious, as
many believe, the multiplication of cas-
es may sooner or later reach point
if its progress is unchecked-at which
perpetuation of our race and the civ
ilizatlon developed by it will become
impossible. Other races and civiliza-
tions have disappeared, leaving no ex-
planation of the secret of their decline.
Others, we have good reasons for be-
lieving, have been exterminated by
plaques peculiar to them, developed in
all probability by something peculiar
to their modes of living. a 81
That there is any imminent danger
of so disastrous 3 result to our race and
civilization from the increase of con-
sumption no one but an alarmist would
suppose still it remains an impending
possibility, more especially if there is
any error in the common belief that the
disease is not contagious or infectious.
| In the current issue of the Scientific
american supplement valuable sum-
mary of evidence supporting the posi-
tion that the virus of consumption is
specific and communicable is presented
by DR.. Cogshall, of Michigan. The
evidence is fuller and more cOgent than
popularly believed; and while it must
be admitted that many cases of sup
posed communication of the disease
may be due not to any transmission of
virus but to similarity of unsanitary
surroundings and family customs on
the part of related victims, there is
still sufficient evidence that the direct
communication of tuberculosis is fol-
| lowed by pulmonary consumption to
justify not only exceeding care in the
intercourse of the healthy with con-
sumptive patients and rigorous SANTA
tion in connection with all cases of the
disease, but special reinvestigation of
the natural history of consumption by
the medical profession.
The suggestions which DR.. COgshall
makes touching the measures best cal
culated to prevent the ravages of con-
sumption, and his remarks with regard
to the superior efficiency of hygienic
treatment over medication, will be
found worthy of thoughtful attention.
The position he takes with regard to
the durability of consumption, even in
advanced cases, through improved nu-
triton and judicious hygiene to the
exclusion of all nostrums and so-called
consumptive cures is decidedly hope
ful; and we believe that the most of
our physicians will measurably agree
with him. We wish we could be so
we'll assured of their desire to investi
gate anew and thoroughly the question
of the communicability of the virus of
| the disease.-Scientitfc american.
| [Egin, Qll.) Daily Leader.
The subjoined opinion, we preceive,
is by J. A. Daniels, ESQ.,, OF Messrs.