The Savannah morning news., 1903-03-22

pOA NuAlllS wealthy
if the cities will not take it up."
What Must be Done Now.
To the suggestion that preventive
measures will not help those already
afflicted with tuberculosis, DIR. Shrady
replied:
For them, either the municipalities
or the wealthy citizens must build spe-
cial hospitals and surround them with
extensive grounds. There patients
may take exercise in the open air with
the sun shining upon them. There
they may live out of doors. There
they may even sleep with no roof over
them. The cure thus offered must be
furnished free to those who cannot af-
ford to pay.
There are a few such municipal
and state hospitals now, but more
must be established. With the great
preventive measures that 1 suggest ac-
complished, however, the need for hos
pitfalls and the withdrawal from pro-
ductive activity of the patients, and
the attendants and nurses who care
for them, will gradually disappear"
IssOlatiOn of COnsumptives Unnec-
essary.
In DIR. Shradys judgment, the isola-
ton of tuberculosis patients is not
necessary or desirable, providing or
binary care in methods of life is ex-
ercised and the destruction of the spu-
tum is attended to.
1T is as easy for those of small
means to care for their consumptives
as for anyone else" said Dr. Shrady.
unless they are too crowded and are
Obliged to live in holes to which the
light and air cannot have free access.
There are tenements, though, in every
big city in this country, and many
smaller ones, too, I am sorry to say,
over the doors of which might well be
inscribed: All We who enter here
leave hope behind 1t is the desire of
people, the city and the state to do
away with these.
Light n Cure.
Light is one of the most remarkable
of all the remedial agents at hand for
the treatment of this class of diseases.
Finsen. the Scandinavian, has shown
this, through the things he has ac-
Complished in the treatment of lupus
with those invisible rays which are
termed ultraviolet.
Lupus is not common in America,
though well known and dreaded on the
other side of the Atlantic. 1t is a form
of tuberculosis, not of the lungs, but
of the surface, and Finsen destroys it
ly chemical rays. His rays have not
been made to penetrate deeply enough
as yet, however, to be very eff1cacious
in tuberculosis of the lungs.
''Just how much progress can be
made with similar treatments, no one
knows as yet. In London and Paris,
in Berlin and Vienna, in Copenhagen
studying the effect of the blue light
and the ultraviolet rays under vary
ing circumstances. They are also ex-
perimenting with various lenses and
other media through which to pass
the light.
There have been many experiments
with the X-rays in fighting cancer,
but these have not been successful ex-
cept i'll superficial cases. Even then
the rays have not been of much
greater, If any, more benefit than the
plan of scraping out the bed of the
ulcer and using caustics.
THE knife still remains the last re-
sort for well developed cancer. Even
it fails when the disease is of such
long standing as to allow thorough
distribution of the disease through the
system.
Promising BacterioIogicaI RE-
searches.
There is promise in the immense
activity now being displayed in bac-
THEOLOGICAL research. While, it has
not led to the discovery of remedies
in great number of instances, it has
laid bare the causes of several disor-
ders to which the flesh is heir In this
way it has led the profession closer
and closer to the plan of assisting ma
ture in building up the power of re-
s1stance and the adoption of the sim
plest treatment possible.
ut is true that certain poisons IAN
titoxins) destructive of the disease
producing bacteria have been discoy-
cred, but in more than one instance it
mas been found that these poisons
would also kill the patient, or at best.
leave him much weakened.
1t was so with formalin, in cases of
blood poisoning. Formalin, will, in
deed, destroy the microbes producing
this disorder but formalin's effect
upon the patient is still very question:
able.
Hope in Anti-Toxins.
An interesting thing which medical
science has discovered concerning BAG
terra, but of which the general pub
lie, probably is not aware, is the fact
that microbes do little or no harm TO
the human system directly Thew
come into being, live their little live.
and die, nourished by the vital forces
surrounded, without destroying tissues
or interfering with the functions of
that life.
But in the course of their brief ac-
tivity it has been found that they dis
till deadly poisons (toxins) and these
poisons produce the disease. From this
discovery rose the serum treatment
the invention of the various antitox-
ms. An antitoxin, as it's name indf-
Gates, is simply an opposing poison.
The antitoxins that have been found
so useful in the treatment of such dis
eases as diphtheria, for instance. do
their work by destroying the poisons
which produce them.
Into the system of the patient the
proper antitoxin is introduced by in
oculation. AS the circulation of the
blood carries it coursing through the
veins and arteries, it meets. opposes,
and, If the disease has not progressed