Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1901-10-14
PREVENTION OF CONSUMPTION.

PREVENTION OF CONSUMPTION.
Simple Means Found to be Very
Effective.
BY the latest report from the city
health officer itappears that pulmonary
tuberculosis is still the most prevalent
and deadly of diseases which carry off
monthly hundreds of Chicago's inhabi-
tants, says the Chicago Chronicle.
The proportion Of cases of con-
sumption to the next most common and
fatal disease, which is classed as ner-
vous, is as 200 to $50. The new pre-
sentation of these facts should awaken
professional and general attention to
the Importance of prevention Of con-
sumption, which has been clearly
proved to be possible and not extreme
ly difficult.
In the cities both in this country and
in other countries where preventive
measures have been most successful
some of the means employed by those
of the most effective are very simple.
According to recent and authentic
reports from New York pulmonary
tuberculosis has within period of fif-
teen years been greatly reduced in fire.
quency and also in it's fatality. The
mortality last year was 80 per cent.
smaller than it was in 1885, an i'm
provement being shown in each year
since that date.
Physicians in New York who have
given most attention to the subject
state that they feel warranted in MAX
ing the promise that, the preventive
measures now in use being continued,
there will be within the next five years
q further decrease of one-third in the
number of victims of the dread dis
ease.
Professor Brouardel, dean of the
faculty of medicine in Paris, was the
principal speaker at the recent con-
gress in London He asserted that
tuberculosis was the greatest enemy Of
the human race; that it was accounta-
BILE in some countries for a sixth,
fifth, and sometimes for fourth of the
fatal mortality, and he declared that
such havoc as this made it compulsory
that all nations and governments
should strictly inquire into and adopt
measures to arrest it's propagation.
Yet he found that our ancestors
had looked impassively on the struggles
going on around them. The struggle
was considered useless, the disease in
durable; it was not known how it
spread. But when on Dec. 5. 1866,
Villemin showed experiments at the
academy of medicine which proved the
real presence of the contagion, and
when Professor Robert Koch had dis
covered the agent of this contagion,
everyone felt that a new way was
open to humanity"
A historical statement made to the
congress by Professor Brouardel was
very striking-he was on the subject
of the durability Of consumption:
1.-THE idea,'' he said, that tuberculosis
can be cured dated back to Hippo
crates. 'Phthisis, if treated early
enough, gets WE'LL said the father of
medicine. After twenty-five centuries
we are supporting the same theory"
1t was the opinion of every speaker
at the congress that chief among the
culosis was the careless and slovenly
methods of living by the occu-
pants of tenament-houses and other
congested residence quarters. They
were continually coming in con.
tact with one another and chances of
contagion were increased by this fact
alone.
The evil of splitting was incidental
to the overcrowding, though of the two
it was the greater evil, the presence
of sputum being the same as the pres
ence of the contagion. More than one
of thespeakers complimented the cities
of the United States upon their legal
to suppress this offensive
habit.
The cities of the United States,
speaking in general terms, should de-
cline the compliment with shame Our
city halls and all public buildings,
our sidewalks and street cars, by the
evidence they all bear to the splitting
habit, convict our cities of verv great
carelessness in this respect.
Where do some people come in
closer contact with one another than
in the passenger elevators in our big
cities and in the street cars? If the
contention of the scientists at the Lon
don congress of tuberculosis be cor
rect every passenger elevator and
every street car is foci of the dis
ease.