The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-07
Making War on Consumption.

A report made to the New York Board
Of Health by Prof. Riggs, the bacteriolO-
gist to the department, upon the preva-
lence Of consumption and the means to
check its ravages. is being discussed by
leading physicians. The professors re-
port begins with the startling statement
that in the city Of New York during the
last wear there were 5000 deaths from
consumption, which fact, he thought,
warranted him in saying the time had
come for the health department to as
sumo surveillance of the disease, which
he officially declared to be contagious. He
recommended that by a systematic effort
the people be instructed concerning con
sumption. and made to understand that
every tubergulous person is source of &C
tuaI danger; that all public medical and
penal institutions be required to trans
nit to the board of health
the names and addresses of persons
suffering with tuberculous troubles i'm
mediately upon such person coming under
observation; that special inspectors be ap-
pointed to look after the disease in private
houses; that hospitals be required to iso-
late Consumptive from other patients,
and that a separate hospital for the ex-
elusive treatement of consumption be es-
tablished. DR.. Shrady and other emf
nent physicians agree that Prof. Biggs'
report and recommendations are timely,
correct ana of greatest Importance.
Medical science has learned more about
consumption within the past few years
than during all previous time, back to
Esculapius. 1t is probable that actual
knowledge of the causes and character of
the disease dates no futher back than the
early days of the Koch lymph sensat ton,
when the attention of the best minds in
the medical world was directed to the dis
covery and the i'll the lymph was alleged to
cure. The investigations since made have
proved many of the theories regarding
consumption that had obtained for years
and generations to be worthless fallacies.
II had been held that consumption was
hereditary; that it was transmitted from
parent to child through generations, and
the facts seemed to bear out the theory.
But modern medicine has discovered that
the germ which causes consumption is
not one that can possibly be transmitted
by heredity. The liability to the
disease can be so transmitted. When
child with an inherited weak constitution
comes in contact with its tuberculous
parent it contracts the disease. But it is
not born with the germ.
Not being a hereditary disease, CON
sumption could in one generation be made
to disappear, according to one bac-
| teriologist, if it were possible to
induce everybody to observe proper
precautions. The Philadelphia Board of
Health recently took steps to stop the
practice of promIscOus expectOration on
the floors of cars and halls, as in this man
ner the bacilH of tuberculosis are widely
distributed. Prof Biggs, of the New
| York board of health, proposes to go
| further, and put all tuberculous persons
under surveillance and warn their asso-
ciates of the danger of contact with them
| Prof. Biggs' plan in operation would prob
ably be very unpopular. Indeed, it is not
/ practicable to watch all tuberculous per
/ sons, nor desirable to have them all
isolated. Still great health reform
might be worked by establishing separate
! wards in hospitals for cOnsumptive pa
tients, and instructing the public with
regard to the disease through various
! publications-pa pamphlets, circular letters,
the newspapers, etc.