Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1893-11-18

The recent action of the Michigan State
Board of Health in placing consumption on
the list of contagious diseases and requiring
safeguards to prevent its spread, Is causing
widespread newspaper discussion as TO the
propriety of similar action in other States:
Not only has the Michigan Board of
Health taken this radical step, but the Coun-
ty Medical Society, of Philadelphia, has petl-
toned the Board of Health there to isolate
consumptives. The Pan-American Con-
greSs also passed resolution at the recent
Washington convention calling on the Ma
tional Government to take steps in the same
direction, even going so far as to ask Presl-
dent Cleveland to give his personal attention
to the matter.
The result has been that National, State
and civic authorities have been appealed to,
thereby causing CONSERVATION to thousands
of consumptives in every State In the Union,
who are in terror lest they should be torn
from their homes and friends. and turned
over to Especial hospitals, (which, in reality,
will be pest houses.
The turmoil which the proposition has
created is steadily increasing, and great
wave of opposition is appearing.
Friends of consumptives declare that II $50
lation of the patients is attempted IN special
hospitals, numerous outrages will result and
that not only will unfeeling persons who
upon the hospitals. but Vaccinations VIII
arise of a most evil character. Small trades
men, for instance, afflicted by cough, may
suddenly find themselves moved out OF their
competitors way, by judicial process which
will send them to the special consumptlve
hospital TO end their days.
Some declare that while the appearance OF
smallpox or cholera in the land is the signal
for immediate, widespread alarm, and the
inauguration of severe repressive measures,
consumption which is always present and Is
chemically epidemic, is allowed to take en-
unchecked course, the people not realizing
that it is far more deadly than any other dis
ease, and is slowly but surely increasing its
silent ravages. 1t is claimed that as half of
the people who have consumption do not
realize the fact, they spread false conf
dence among their friends, who carelessly
allow themselves to come in contact with the
victims, and are, in turn, fatally infected.
The n. Y. Herald, commenting on this
subject, quotes the action of the Congress de
la tuberculosis, recently held in Paris, in
which the following resolution was adopted:
I'm view of the fact that life in common of
consumptives with the other patients in the
hospitals is Instantaneous both to them
selves and others, and that the risks that
they run and to which they expose Others are
not compensated by any serious profit, the
members of the Congress are of the opinion
that all consumptive patients should be
gathered together in special hospitals in
groups, according to the period of their dis
ease, and that these groups should be as
small as possible at the earliest stage of the
complaint
"In consideration of the fact that in the
present condition of the science a continu-
Gus and sufficient supply of pure air is one of
the most powerful elements in the treatment
of tuberculosis, it is also advisable that these
hospitals should be built in the country, or at
the sea-shore.
FINALLY, as transitory measure, to last as
short time as possible, consumptives
should, for the time being, be united in spe-
clal wards III the hospitals, apart from those
of the other patients. and the walls and fur
niture of these wards should be disinfected
at stated intervals"
Another scheme for the isolation of con-
sumptives, which has just been announced
by the Denver Colo News, is to the effect
that w. n. Byers, representing a syndicate
OF Boston capitalists, has applied at the Of
fee of the Colorado Land Commissioner for
sections of land on which to coloniZe con-
sumptives from New England The idea is
to erect suitable buildings and put the pa
tients at gentle work, attending to fruit and
poultry, bee culture and gardening, insist
ing, all of the time, upon suitable physical
exercise. The idea is that patients in the
first stages of consumption might be bene-
lifted in the mild, dry air of Colorado and
that their light labors can be turned to the
pecuniary advantage of the syndicate.
The Cincinnati Post over a year ago inter
ested itself in the question of the cause of
consumption and the possibility of its cure.
Since that time many other newspapers have
devoted attention to the subject.
Recent statistics, carefully gathered, have
shown that one-seventh of all the deaths in
the United States from disease are caused by
consumption, and this startling fact, promi-
nently presented, has served to increase the
agitation which has been aroused.
In order to get at the opinions of the lead
poet OF the case, /. e., that relating to the
proposed isolation of consumptives, inter-
views were secured with DIS. Whitaker, JUDD
klns, Amick, Drumming, and others.
DIR. William Judkins said: II thoroughly
believe in the scheme for the isolation of
consumptive patients. The best plan is to
take the patient out of his home and put him
in house specially built for consumptives
The idea may seem harsh one, but it is GER
tainly in the interest of friends of the suffer-
er. The great trouble with the project would
be to get patients in the first stages of the
disease TO go to such retreat. Most of
them don't believe that they have consump-
ton, and you cannot convince them to the
contrary.
w nlltdhCT SAUL GO not approve OF
the isolation project simply because do not
think it would do any practical good. Iso-
latIon, the taking away of a consumptive
from his home and friends, would be rather
inhuman,"
SIS every case of consumption the result OF
contact with some other case, or is the dis
ease sometimes sporadic, like cholera!'
mo. There is no such thing as sporadic
consumption. It is not even an inherited
disease. Every case owes its origin to COM
munication. Many cases of consumption
are contracted at bedsides. One patient can
give it to twenty well persons. Strong men,
with no predisposition that way, get it. Why,
one of the worst places to contract consump-
ton is in postoffice corridor. A consump-
t;ve coming in spits on the floor. He
spreads the germs of his disease to be inhaled
by others who enter. There should be Gus
pidors in post offices, in market-houses and
IN all other public places. Splitting by con-
sumptives upon sidewalks is not so danger
Gus, as the open air disseminates the germs
more widely than in building"
"Do you think that consumption is increas.
ing. or decreasing"
"Probably decreasing, on account of bet
ter methods used in treating it. The news
papers can do great good by calling atten-
ton to the great dangers of consumption
and noting the necessity for greater care in
guarding against the disease. People are
too careless. No doubt isolation would he