The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-02-08
CONSUMPTION CURE.
BROADENING OFTHE ND1CK
 SA ANIT4RIA PLANS

S1 NII4 fI1 PLANS. Legislative Committee Advocating Tu-
 bercuiosis Homes in Other Parts o1
 Have Done Abroad-BeI That the
 Disease Can He Eradicated in the
 Course of Time.
 It is said to be probable that under the direction of special committee of the state board of charities the plan of establishing state hospital for con- sumptives in the Adirondacks, which is at the present time provided for by a bill in the legislature. will assume much broader scope than originally pro- posed The committee. consisting of Harvey w. Putnam, Enoch V. Stod- dard, M. D., and Stephen smith, M. D., was appointed by the state board for the purpose of examining into the wisdom of establishing such santari- um at public expense-the anne pro- position that failed to secure decisive action at the preceding legislative ses- sion.
 The report of the committee, just is- sued, specifically recommends against the proposed bill, and suggests in it's place legislation providing for state system of hospitals for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis-the whole s ys- tenn to be under the general supervision of the state board of health. The pro- posed plan comprises an elaborate sys- tenn of state hospitals, to be under the control of a board of managers appoint ed by the governor and the senate, and a larger number of local sanitaria, to be governed by the local health boards.
 This system is brought forward by the committee as a practically certain method of checking if not extermina- ting consuhmption in this state. The committee does not hesitate to say that the eradication is practicable, and that the way towards its accomplishment is perfectly clear. It recognizes the fact that the battle will be very hard and expensive one, but it states emphati- cally that if the legislature can only be persuaded to act on the suggestions con- tained in it's report, within decade at least this disease which is especially widespread at the present time among the poor people of this state. will be unknown except among the most de- prayed and ridiculous classes. How re- markable an accomplishment this would be, it shows by statistics. In 1899, the report says, fourteen thousand persons died of consumption in this state, and at the close of the year seventy thou sand were i'll with it. The report as- serts that the state has it in it's power not only to cure the larger number of 1 q ..,4.. +., but, within the space of ten years, so to reduce the number of/ patients and deaths that the result will be the prac- tical eradication of the disease.
 The committee spent great deal of time and made careful investigation before arriving at this conclusion. It | states that the mortality from con- sumption has been greatly decreased in | England and Germany by the adoption of preventive measures, such as it sug gests for New York state. It believes that in the future consumption, now perhaps the most generally destructive disease known to medical science, will be as unknown as some of the mysteri- ous plaques of antiquity The method for the cure of the sick and the preven- tion of the infection, the report declares,
  and ability of every organized commu- nifty successfully to establish and main- tain.
 The one cure and preventive of con- sumption, the report says, is fresh air | Even consumptives in the last and most dscouraging S tages of the disease, it continues, have been cured simply by the inhalation of fresh air The exper- c.f !, ,ie r+ says, has passed; it is one of the abso- lutely established facts of medical sci ence, and the only question now to de- termine is how the great quantities of fresh air in he world and especially in New York state, can be made availa- ble for the sick poor. The committee does not believe that it is necessary t o go to the Adirondacks and other inac- cessible places for this consumption an- tidote; it believes that it is everywhere, in dry climates and moist, in low alt- tudes and high, in the country and the town. The best way, according to the present report, by which the fresh air treatment can be successfully applied is medical supervision of the sick in suitably located santaria
 The habits of consumptives are such
  pervision is necessary. Victims of tu- berculosis are too inclined to huddle in close and unventilated rooms; have a morbid fear of catching cold" burden themselves with "chest protectors and other unsalubrious garments; and are altogether too inclined to resort for re- lief to patent medicines which ruin or impair their digestion. It is necessary, ( therefore, to get them away from influ- ences of this sort, result that can be C accomplished. most readily by placing them in rigidly conducted public insti- q tuition. The committee is therefore of the opinion that sanitaria of the kind pro- { posed, under the direction of the state board of health should be established in all parts of the state of New York. The report also dwells on the education c al value of such sanitaria-in that the inmates learn, for the first time in their . lives the importance of enforcing cer- ( tain elementary hygienic rules, and . make use of this Knowledge when they ( return to their own homes. It calls at- | 4, +I,o Co.