Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-08
TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION.
Method of Fighting the Scourge With
out Leaving Home.
From the New York Herald.

From the New York Herald.
When the large number of tuberculosis
patients among the laboring classes are
taken into account there is the greatest
reason for considering effective home
treatment for this disease. The Herald has
persistently emphasized such a necessity,
and has from time to time advocated meet
ing it in an adaptable and practical way.
These patients, who are bread-winuers and
whose work is essential to their dependents.
cannot afford the popular climate cures and
must fight the enemy at their own doors.
1t is not question OF caring for the merely
incipent cases, but the advanced ones as
we'll How otherwise can it be determined
when the freshly stricken individual is past
the curative stage? In other words must
the advanced victims be left to theit fate
while all efforts of relief directed to the
more hopeful ones? We cannot reach either
class by ordinary hospital treatment.
a census of tuberculosis patients in such
of the New York institutions as care for
these sufferers is scarcely above two thou
sand. What then, is to be done with the
great army of sufferers that remains out
side? The health board has attempted to
answer the question by the establishment
of dispensary for the purpose of system
attic treatment of any who may apply. In
the multitude of applications. in the irreg
ular attendance of cases, in the obvious
impossibility of enforcing systematic cura-
tive measures and in the inability to formu-
late trustworthy statistics the experiment is
so far in its infancy.
Fortunately such difficulties have been
met by the Post Graduate Hospital of this
city, which since 1898 in its own dispensary
has been quietly proving in a thoroughly
practical way what can be accomplished
along these lines by strictly scientific
methods and the most careful study of each
individual patient.
The movement was inaugurated by DR..
Russell who after careful analysis of the
food values of certain nutrients was
abled to construct an emulsion OF fatty
substances which has served to enforce
to marked degree the constituents of
the ordinary laborers diet and add to his
weight and strength while attending to his
daily work. The preparation Is IN no sense
a secret one and is known and approved
by the faculty of the institution and the
members of the profession at large 1t is
only new in the proportions in which the
different ingredients are combined.
Dr. Donald NJ Barstow as a member of
the committee appointed by the Post Gradu-
ate Hospital dspensary, has made re-
port of this method of treatment in a re-
cent number of the Post Graduate Maya
zine, and the conclusions reached are
in the highest degree interesting in
proving the utility of approximation
to the virtual exclusion of any special
climatic Influences. The results of
this treatment" says DR.. Barstow, have
been very good on the whole. That forty
three dispensary patients have been cured
of pulmonary tuberculosis in New York
city, while plying their respective trades,
during the last seven years IS sufficient evil
dence that the treatment Is worth con-
sidering.
The number named is not large, it is
true, but the results prove a very i'm
portant point regarding home treatment
and materially help the establishment of
its utility for the poor man. What would
indeed have been the fate of these patients
had they been left without such beneticent
aid? Surely poor as the man may be
he has no need to despair so long as he
can obtain fresh air, sunlight and good
food, no matter where he may live.