The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-04
CURING TUBERCULOSIS
 IN CITY TREATMENTS
CONTINUE NING-RIGHr rTHEG GREA TDEsIDERATUM-sUCCEss EXPERIMENTAL PosT-GRADUATE DIsPENsARY

New York, June 3-That tuberculosis the scourge of the tenements, can De cured in the tenements would have been declared absurd ten years ago. Then the consumptivo workingman' whose small wages gave him no oppor- tunity to shake the dust of New York fran his feet and betake himself to some sanatorium in the Adirondacks or Colorado, regarded himself and was re- garded as doomed. Not for him could a hospital ship be manned-as Is now being done-and sent to the eternal
 sunshine of the polar summer.
 Yet there Is hope for the working
 man, for the thesis laid down seven years ago that cases of unccmplicated pulmonary tuberculosis can be cured in New York by disrensary treatment has been sustained by a record of forty-hVe cures, and more are shortly to DC an nounced by the committee or inspec- tion appointed to investigate the re- suits of what has heretofore been re- garded as an experiment.
 Twice a day, early in the morning and after the days work Is over. hfty men and women fill two small rooms in
 the basement of the New York Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital Sitting quietly on the wooden benches ranged around the bare walls and oc- CaS1OnaIiy IaklnB SID ifoiH di o6u'C cup, they all seem so cheerful ana
 prosperous that it is difficult to realize that they form class In tuberculo- sis" and that not long ago every phy- sician in the city would have predicted certain death to whoever of them re- mained in New York. Mingled with those who bear in fact and attitude the unmistakable evidences of consump- tion there are many whose appearance of robust health the average observer might well envy Every stage of the , disease is represented in these rooms, from the newcomer, whose hope Of life is of only a few weeks standing, to the patient whose chest has already been pronounced by the investigating committee free from all signs or dis ease" and who now looks back upon his days of consumption as the typhoid convalescent thinks of his days Of de- lirium, All however. have the same confidence and the same determination to fight for their health.
 And fight they must If they are to de-
 rive any benefit at all from the treat ment. Living in their own homes the great majority working as hard Tor their daily bread as any of the healthy toiiers of the city the patients cannot be forced to get well against their we'll. The scales tell every Sunday morning whether they have been faithful or not, and there is short shift for those who have violated the rules. To sleep Tn fresh air, or as nearly fresh as circum- stances will permit to avoid unnecas- sary exercise, to eat those things which are prescribed and to avoid those things which are prohibited, to come twice a day to the dispensary to report to the head-nurse, and to drink cup full of an emulsion of fats, looking to the untrained eye like rather thin milk
 ha dutioa nf fhR class. Simple as they seem they are not always easy for the sick and the poor, and 1t needs force of character to 20 through the months and years or
 treatment
 With his modest beverage in front of each member, the dispensary rooms Of the Post Graduate Hospital assume in the evening the alr of a club. None Of the patients is under any delusion as to the nature of his illness. To each the same simple statement is made :"You have consumption. If you follow direc- tions you can be cured. If you do not,
 you will be dropped from the class
 This direct view of the case does more to induce a strict observance of rules than 1t does to depress the patients. Some of the members finger few min utes after their cups are empty to chat with each other or with the nurses. The old-timers well on the road to re- covery are good -humored, the new corners more quit and reserved, their attitudes showing their weakness. Sit ting by the side of an emaeiated letter carrier just beginning the treatment one whose sallow face was only occa- sionally lighted by a faint smile, was a ruddy contractor whose wife had come down to the dispensary with him. He had been in the class almost year, had already gained twenty-seven pounds, and. though still troubled with a bad cough. he declared that 1t was nothing to what he had had.
 some of us are pretty healthy-leok- ing now" he said, but we were as bad a set of cons as you'd want to see when we came. They say 1t will take me two more years to get cured, for l was pretty far gone. My.own doctor did not recognize me when l met him on the street the other day. l had been out to California twice and came back each time worse than when l went away. I was all packed up ready to go the third time when heard about this. am in the building business and am all about the city during the daytime, but I get down here twice a day just the same. When I went out to Call fornia ] couldn't do anything but look about the country. I wasn't fit to work anyway, but some of us have to whether we're fit or not"
 Not many, as a matter of fact, are able to take 1t easy. The class is not for men with money to go where they like and do what they want, but for those who are tied to the city by the necessity of working, for their living, men to whom the struggle to supply themselves with the five quarts of milk of the fifteen or eighteen eggs required each day is often all too hard. Not long ago a tenement janitor found he had consumption and got a place as street car conductor, hoping he might be benefited. He grew steadily worse and finally came to the post graduate for treatment. For a time he strug- gled, and then his money was gone and he could no longer buy his milk and eggs. He dropped out of the class and in three weeks he died. To tell men in such circumstances that they must go to the mountains is a mockery from which physicians naturally shrink.
 Even when an effort is made to se- cure more favorable surroundings. the achievement is often pitifully out of proportion to the necessity. Warned in August, 1902, that his lungs were slightly affected" that he could not live in New York and that he ought to go to Denver. a window dresser earning sixteen dollars a week found that the best I could afford was to go to the CatskiIl Mountains for three weeks. The third week I began to cough so came home" Sixteen dol- lars A week does not permit many futile iaunts to the Catskills. This mans money applied to buying the right food resulted in two years in the .onY,n,tttee's declaration that his chest