Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-12
WAR ON TUBERCULOSIS.
Prevention, Not Cure, Should Be the
Aim

Aim.
A special to the New York Tribune from
Paris says: In the LIST six months French
philanthropy especially in Paris, has been
concentrated in efforts to combat tubercu-
losis, which has assumed the proportions of
a national peril. Public and private sub
scriptions have poured forth with unex-
ampled liberality. One Partisan paper
alone. the Figaro, has raised over 100000
toward the establishment Of tuberculosis
sanatoriums after the German model, which
DR.. Brouardel and the French delegates to
the tuberculosis congress so enthusiastical-
ly commend.
But on Wednesday the philanthropic pub
lie received shock that came with the
suddenness of bomb from the blue, for
DR.. Albert Robin of the French Academy
Of Science, in a lecture delivered at the
Sorbonne before an audience composed Of
scientists and of prominent men and wo.
men of Partisan society, announced that all
that has so far been accomplished in the
great fight against tuberculosis is in vain,
and that medical science and philanthropy
have started on altogether the wrong tack.
DR.. Robin does not hesitate to assert, and
his position Is supported by data which
seemed irrefutable to such high authorities
as Brouardel, Grancher and LandouZy OF
the Paris Faculty of Medicine, who were
present at the lecture, that tuberculosis,
when once firmly established in the system,
Is practically incurable. DR.. Robins fig
ures prove that of thirty-six tuberculosis
patients that leave the sanatorium ten re-
lapse after six months and ten more after
a year, and that only five out of thirty six
are saved. The only efficacious method Of
fighting tuberculosis, according to DR..
Robin, is prevention.
The discoveries just made by DR.. Robin
and his colleague, Maurice Binet, enable
the stage Of predisposition to tuberculosis
tn hn Lot n1 how IDOL
racy, two infallible tests being the excess
Of respiratory consumption and daily or
/. ganic Standardization or loss Of mineral
elements Of the system 1t is to this pre-
ltminary stage of tuberculosis that all eff
forts should be directed, the absolute rem
edy prevention being easily attained by
the air cure. by abstention from alcohol
and by complete mental and physical rest.
DR.. Robin maintains that the Sanatoriums.
toward which millions have been uselessly
expended. are, from a financial point Of
view, impracticable, and Unexpectedly
are simply chimerical. DR.. Robin supports
his argument on the financial head by point
ing out that, supposing only one hundred
thousand beds were provided for the half
million persons suffering from tuberculosis
in France. and each bed cost $1,000 for in
itial endowment, we have at once $780,
OOO,COO needed at the very outset without
counting incidental expenses.
DR.. Robins revelations are commented
upon today by all the leading papers in
Paris and France. and his revelations cause
something approa ching to revolution in the
great humanitarian struggle against tuber-
culosis. The city Of Paris has today OPEN
ed new ward in the Hospital de la Pitie
for the preventive treatment of tuberculosis
on the lines adopted by DR.. Robin and un-
der his direction.
DR.. Ropin declares that so far as. exam
nation a. facts brought to his knowledge
warranted, his opinion was that humanitar-
ian philanthropy in regard to tuberculosis
was on the wrong tack in the United States