The morning call., 1890-07-27
A HOSPITAL FOK CONsUMPrIvEs.

1t is proposed to establish at Philadelphia
a monster hospital for the treatment OF
consumption. Within the past three or four
years mass of valuable information on
this terrible scOurge has been collected in
this country and in Europe. Some of the
new information gathered is c0njectural,
but much of it is fact. How much truth
there is in the theories that consumption is
hereditary, that il is caused by a bacillus,
that it is produced by the use of the milk OF
diseased cows that ii is engendered by foul
air no one can positively assert, nor is the
evidence that it can be cured by mountain
air or by the use of alcoholic Stimulants so
conclusive as TO close the door to contro-
versy Physicians have adduced much
testimony in support of these several prop
ositions, but the testimony does not yet
amount to absolute demonstration. To as
certain the truth, more observation and
more comparison of results is required. 1t
is to obtain these that the new hospital is
to be founded.
Eight years have elapsed since Dr. Robert
Koch, whose studies in bacteriology had
made him famous, declared that he had
discovered the specific bacterium which
caused consumption. 1t was a slender
bacillus, with length equal to one-fOurth
to one-half the diameter Of the red corpus
cles of the blood. 1t was found in the eX-
pectoration of consumptlves, and likewise
in all organs affected by pulmonary tuber-
culosis; whence Dr. Koch inferred that it
attached itself TO floating particles in the
air, and was inhaled with these into the
lungs When this theory was first adj
vanced, it commanded almost universal
assent. But it soon began to be questioned,
and a couple Of years afterward large pro-
portion of scientific men inclined TO the
belief that the bacilli of consumption were
the result and not the cause Of cOnsump-
ton They asserted that tubercular con-
sumption never manifested itself except in
persons of scrofulOus habit, and that in
majority of the cases which had been OBJ
served the appearance of the disease could
be traced to bad nutrition, bad habits and
bad hygienic surroundings. Between DIR.
Koch's school, and this opposition school,
the controversy is as far from adjustment
as it was IN 1884.
Since then conventions of doctors have
been held at Paris and elsewhere, to COM
pare notes on consumption. They devoted
more attention TO the therapeutic branch of
the subject than TO theories touching its
origin. The Paris conference did dwell at
considerable length on the notion that the
chief cause of consumption was the use OF
diseased milk; but other meetings con-
cerned themselves more specifically with
the various means of arresting or curing the
disease and after much debate they came
to the conclusion that life in the open air.
in dry elevated spots, was about the best
treatment that could be recommended.
This was not much progress from DR.. Bu-
chan himself.
On the use of alcohol to arrest tubercular
deposits doctors differ as wildly as ever.
There is an eminent German doctor who
runs a maison de sante for cOnsumptives,
and who relies almost entirely on brandy to
cure his patients. He increased his doses
daily, until in some cases nearly a whole
bottle of brandy is taken in the twenty-four
hours. 1t is said that he effects cures.
Medical critics say that his patients get
well not because of the brandy but in spite
of it, and that people who can consume so
much brandy without dying of it must have
such iron constitutions that the least change
of air enables them to throw off consump-
ton. 1t is certain that in this country in
temperate habits are a leading, perhaps the
leading cause of consumption.
If the Philadelphia Hospital is placed in
the hands of bright men, who are bent on
finding out the truth rather than vindicat-
ing pet theories, the coming generation will
perhaps know all about disease which is
said to cause one-eghth of our total NOR
tally, and in certain stages to defy the
| skill of the physician.