Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-04-23
PRESS COMM ENTS.
Consumption.


In many localities this single disease
causes at least one-sixth of the aggregate
number of deaths; yet, appalling as the
mortality is, the health boards and the
medical profession seem to be incapable
of taking resolute stand and making a
determined fight against consumption.
With all the advances of medical science
this dread disease has continued it's
ravages, and all measures for dealing
with it and diminishing the mortality
rate have proved unavailing.
DR.. Nathan uniting, in a very able
article in "The North American Journal
of Homeopathy" offers as an explana-
tion of this inaction and apathy the
widely prevalent opinion that tubercu-
losis Is hereditary. He considers this
theory undoubtedly erroneous, and con-
tends that it would be safer to assert that
the predisposition to the disease, rather
than tuberculosis itself, may be inherited.
The distinction Is an important one, be.
cause it opens the way for consideration
of climatic influences ana quarantine
measures as agencies for the extirpation
of the disease. So long as it was the
generally accepted theory that consump-
tion was an inherited disease, it was re-
garded as necessary evil. As soon as
the fact was established that it was a
contagious disease, which could be con-
tracted by patients either without
hereditary faint or with only predispo-
sition for it, the necessity for radical
change in methods of treating it was APP
parent. The most eminent specialists of
the profession and the most practical
sanitary experts now agree that measures
for isolatipg patients and systematically
disinfecting their rooms are indispens-
able.
If consumption bea contagious disease,
as is now generally admitted by the most
scientific men of the medical profession,
it is a natural inference that something
like national quarantine against it is
essential. This is the burden of DR.. Nut
ting's paper. Assuming that the only
method of treatment which has met with
any method of success is climatic relief
afforded by dry atmosphere, an equable
temperature and the possibility of out
door life, he accepts the conclusions of a
committee appointed by the medical con-
gress of France, in 1885, to the effect that
the Rio Grande valley of central New
Mexico is locality wherein the condi-
tions for conyalescence are found in the
highest degree, only one other district, a
paratively small territory in northern
Africa, comparing favorably with it. His
idea is that the time is not far distant
when consumption will be declared an in
fictitious disease and measures be taken to
provide national as we'll as local quar-
antine, and that New Mexico fulflls all
the requirements of the problem.
DR.. Nutting forecasts systematic en-
forcement of state laws against consump-
ton, and the removal of patients to such
quarantine ground as he proposes,
where the cottage plan may be substituted
for hospitals and sanitariums and suitable
openai employment enjoined upon all.
He even advocates government assistance
to involuntary exiles afflicted with con-
sumption, and measures for compelling
patients thus quarantined to remain per-
manently where they can hope to regain
and retain health and at the same time
cease to be agents in spreading infection.
While we are not prepared to advocate so
radical plan in all its details, we COM
mend DR.. Nutting's paper to the serio US
attention of the medical profession. What
is indisputable is the fact that moisture
is the arch enemy of the consumptive
patient, and that the process of germ
propagation can only be arrested in a
dry atmosphere, where the changes of
temperature are slight. What is also in
controvertible is the terrible mortality
from consumption in a large portion of
the civilized world.--New York Tribune,
April II.