The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-01-16
SPREAD OF MALADY.
PNEUMONIA VICTIMS INCREASE
IN NUMBER YEARLY.
Medical Authorities Putting Forth
Their Best Efforts to Check
Inroads Of the Fell
Disease.

Inc commission which was appointed
last year by the New York board OF
health to study pneumonia and whose
preliminary report has just been sum-
married. by the press, is composed of
men of high professional rank, says the
New York Tribune. Yet the problems
involved in the inquiry are SO serious
that there is no danger of securing too
exalted a grade of talent for their solu-
ton. The disease which the commits.
sion has been considering has risen into
peculiar prominence of late. At one
time consumption caused more deaths
than any other malady and pneumonia
ranked second as a cause of morality.
Within the last ten or fifteen years the
two have exchanged places in some parts
OF the United States, If not in the me-
trOpolis. Consumption, as result of
the adoption of more enlightened meth
DDS of prevention and treatment, works
little less havoc now than formerly.
Pneumonia, on the other hand, finds
greater number of victims in proportion
to the population. There is ground for
the belief that grip has contributed
materially to this result because it is
often prelude to an attack Of pneu-
monia and 1t sadly disqualifies man for
successful resistance to an illness OF an
other nature. However, whatever the
cause, the increased prevalence of pneu-
monia has excited the gravest alarm and
perplexity in the medical profession.
The commission is convinced that,
like tuberculosis, the more acute type OF
lung disease is attributable to the pres
ence Of microbes and that the latter are
disseminated by the drying of sputum
from patients. The organisms are not
easily borne about by the air SO long as
they are moist, but afterward they are
as easily circulated as dust particles.
This fundamental fact shows the desir-
ability of deluging a sick room with sun
light, promoting free ventilation and u.s.
ing broom only when the floor has
been sprinkled.
Some puzzling facts have been ELECTED
in the course of the investigation con-
Quoted by DR.. Darlington's experts. One
is that pneumococci, the supposed cause
of the disease, are sometimes carried in
the mouths of persons for weeks with
out producing any apparent effect. III
like manner they are observed in the Sc
cretions of patients who have recovered
for considerable interval after the dis
appearance of other symptoms. This
second phenomenon resembles one
which often follows an attack of typhoid
fever and gives rise to the question how
long such persons may threaten the
health of their associates and neighbors
Perhaps more light on this matter may
be afforded by further observation.
Such information should prove useful
in the devising Of sanitary precautions
for community in which pneumonia
prevails.
Prevention is infinitely preferable to
cure, but good generals consider what to
do If their first line of defense fails The
only remedial agent to which the COM
sion refers is blood serum derived
from an immune animal. Experiments
were made, evidently with view to OBJ
tanning hints as to the value of an an
titoxin of this kind, other ventures of
the same character having been made
repeatedly in the last few years. The
verdict rendered is little obscure, but,
: while the commission seems to have
found that serum, as now prepared,
might be serviceable for purposes of
diagnosis, it appears to be silent about
the remedial and protective qualities of
the article. However, if the serum
which few physicians even now en-
ploy, is not all that could be desired i'm
proved methods may yet develop one
that can be more heartily recommended.