The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-15
cURING coNsuMPrToN.

OpRA14 kVNBu MfIlONs
 Can we really entertain the hope
 that remedy for consumption has at
 last been found? That is the report
 that comes from Paris, where Tuber- culosis Congress has been in session. and at which, 1t is said, Professor von Behring made the announcement that he had cure for the disease. He did not, ae far as we are aware. tell what hiA remedy is, but asserted positively that he had successfully tested 1t.
 If this is true 1t Is among the most important medical discoveries ever made. With the possible exception of cancer. consumption Is. the most in sidtcus aud unmanagable aiiment that the medical fraternity has ever been called on to deal with. There are alle- viates and we are continually reading about remedies which are only fakes. There are preparations which give re- lief and prolong life, and sometimes a change of climate will effect an ap-
 parent cure, but that is all. When the disease has become fully established the sufferer is doomed, as a general
 thing. The disease may so on for years, terminating in death at last. or some exposure of the person. or some imprudent act may end it all in short time.
 Aside from this announced cure this disease. thanks to modern discovery, is much more easily guarded against than was formerly understood. Under the old belief and theory of medical men that the disease was always in- herited and never communicated 1it- tie was done to prevent its spread. In the firm conviction that only those whose ancestors were consumptive could take the disease, no efforts were made to segreGate those suffering from 1t, nor were any pains taken to guard others from infection. There was no thought that person without any tendency to tubercuiosis might take it by close association with enc who had 1t, or by living and sleeping in the same room with a consumptive.
 Modern science has established 1t as a fact that consumption Is never trans mitted from parents to children. To be exact. people cannot even inherit a tendency to consumption. Many can and do inherit weak lungs which rem der them more susceptible to attack if they should be exposed to the disease. but that is the only way that inheri- tance has any connection with con- sumption. It is now settled that it is q germ disease, and that these germs, like nearly all disease germs, can be tr The sputa, or discharges from the lungs of a consumptive. if thrown on the ground or floor will dry and be- come pulverized, then the germs are and are scattered by the wind. or by sweeping. Then the person with weak lungs will afford a fitting lodg- ment for these germs and that per- son will have consumption, while oth- CTS equally exposed will not be affect- ed. It Is the same way with malarial diseases which will attack one per- son while scores who are equally ex- posed escape.
 It naturally follows that if a con- sumptive is shut up In a room or house and no effort made to destroy or ster- ilize the affected sputum, others in the same room may contract it. A prominent Philadelphia physician de- clares that If the known means of tuberculosis were univer- sally adopted the disease would be crushed out in this country" That this ioctor's belief is being generally adop- ed is shown by the fact that in many If the States separate rooms or houses Ire provided for consumptive convicts tt the prisons, and means are used in hospitals and infirmaries to prevent the ipread of the disease. Prevention is better than cure, but if the German ioctor has actually found cure for | he disease 1t will help the preventive measures and in time the great White Plague will cease to be terror in the | if ed Statas