Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1906-08-16
The Cause. Prevention and Cure of
TUBERCULOSIS CONSUMPTION
Article No.
The Prevention Of tuberculosis,


February, 1906. The name indicates Its
object. One of the chief methods to be
employed for obtaining this object will be
the dissemination OF reliable information
concerning sthe cause and prevention OF
tuberculosis. A series of short articles on
this subject, of which this is the first, has
been prepared.
Many interesting phases OF the suolect
must be left untouched from lack OF space;
but any question which interested readers
NAV wish to have answered should be sent
to the secretary, who will furnish the lnfor
nation desired, if possible.
tuberculosis is disease which may
affect any organ of the body. The lungs
are most generally attacked. Here 1t is
known as consumption, on account OF the
great wasting of the body usually present
before death.
tuberculosis destroys more than 4,ooo
neople in this state every year. Ii allowed
to 90 unchecked fully 300,0 900 OF those now
living in New Jersey must die from TINS
disease.
The disease has been known from the
earliest history of medicine, and continues
to prevail in all parts of the civilized
world. Its infectious character was long
ago more than once suggested.
| Toward the close of the eighteenth Gen.
tury this must have been the popular belief
| in MANY countries. In Naples, IN 1882, a
royal decree required the disease to be re-
ported and quarantined. Distinction was
carried out after the death or recovery of
the patient.
| To know that it is not an inherited dis
ease should bring hope and gladness to
thousands of tuberculosis parents, and to
the children Of such parents Acting under
the belief that the disease was inherited,
no precautions were taken to prevent the
communication of consumption from one to
another. Whole families were swept away
NOT on account of heredity, but because
the living germ that produces it was not de-
ssroyed.
With the discovery of the veritable cause
of tuberculosis, TO which allusion will be
made later on, heredity as the cause of the
disease could no longer be accepted.
We can now be absolutely certain that
without this germ Of tuberculosis there can
be no tuberculosis.
To inherit consumption it would be
necessary for this germ to be transmitted
from parent to offspring. and we know that
this practically never happens.
Heredity does play part in the develop
ment of tuberculosis, but only the minor
part of one among many Of the predispos-
ing causes.
One may inherit tendency to tuber-
culosis. Other things being equal, child
with one parent, and especially both, con-
sumptive, will be more apt to develop the
disease qohen enposed to the erciting cause
than child whose parents have been free
from tuberculosis.
Experiments in preventing the spread OF
tuberculosis among animals is most in
structive. Bangs, of Copenhagen, who is
an authority on this subject, has shown
that it is possible to entirely eradicate the
disease from herd of cattle in the follow
| ing manner:
The animals are all tested for tubercu-
losis by injection of tuberculin. The sick
and the we'll animals are then completely
separated. Calves born of tuberculous
mothers are at once removed and are fed on
milk from healthy animal.
Frequent tests with tuberculin are made
of the apparently healthy animals, and any
found to have developed tuberculosis are
rejected. In one or two years time it is
possible in this manner to entirely weed out
tuberculosis from large herd of animals,
even when 80 per cent. or more of them
were affected in the beginning.
Calves separated. from tuberculosis mothers
at birth rarely develop the disease if kept
from other animals affected with tuber-
oulosis.
The same results may be obtained in the
human family. Bernheim gives the follow
ing striking examples
srrhe family B. was composed Of FIVE
children, father who died of consumption
and mother who was well.
1.-The second child was removed from its
home Immediately after its birth, reared by
healthy nurse until he was Is years of age.
and then put into school. He is now o
healthy man of Sc. He has never lived
with his parents.
"The four other children lived with their
parents. Two of them have died Of pull
monary tuberculosis, and the other two
have the disease in an advanced stage"
SIN another family Of seven children the
father and mother were both tuberculous.
The second and the fifth child were removed