The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-10-19
VACCINATION
FOR TUBERCULOSIS
Revolutionary Treatment Proposed by
Delegate to International
Congress
SCOURGE BLIGHTS MILLIONS
Yale Professor Declares Annual Cost
of Disease is Over Billion
Dollars.
BLIGHTS MILLIONS

WASHINGTON, September 29.-The
treatment of tuberculosis will be revo-
lutionized if the suggestions of Dr..
julius Bartel, a delegate to the Inter
national tuberculosis Congress, now in
Washington, are accepted. DR.. Bartel
proposes vaccination against tubercu-
losis, just as vaccination now is used
as preventive against smallpox.
Were his theory put into practice it
would mean that every school child
would be forced to undergo a double
vaccination, one against small pox and
the other against tuberculosis.
COSTS BILLION ANNUALLY.
That tuberculosis in the United States
is paid for at the rate of 12S,000 lives
year and an estimated money cost of
over one billion dollars a year was
set forth in startling figures by Pro-
fessor Irving Fisher of Yale College.
Continuing, Professor Fisher said:
This is equal to the deaths from
typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
appendicitis, meningitis, smallpox,
diabetes and cancer, all put together.
Then, again, it generally takes three
years to die, during which time the
poor victim can earn little or nothing.
Finally, the scourge picks out its vic
tins when they are young men and
women, at the very time they are be-
ginning to earn money. The mini
IA
medicines, nursing and loss of earn
ings before death amount to over
$4,000 in each case, while the earning
power which might have been if death
had not come brings the total cost to
at least $4,000. If this is multiplied
by the 12S,O00 deaths, we find the cost
bigger than the almost incalculable
sum of $1,OOO,OOO, 1000"
INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS CLASSIFIED
The subject of Tuberculosis as an
Industrial Disease" was discussed at
length by Frederick L. Hoffman, statis-
tician of the Prudential Life Insurance
Company.
He preached a new occupation
classification by kind of dust expos
ure, grouping in detail into such as
exposed workers to the continuous in
halation of dust, mineral dust, vegeta-
ble-fiber dust, animal and mixed fiber
dust, general organic dust and street
dust. Some thirty specific occupations
were considered in detail including
practically all of the more important
industries and trades. The speaker
dwelt upon the problems of tubercu-
losis prevention as a labor question,
bringing out in startling contrast the
needless waste of life in American in
dustry In conclusion Mr. Hoffman
said:
ut is not going too far to advance
it as a principle of sanitary legislation
that the consumption death rate
among male wage-earners can be re-
duced by methods to almost 1.5 per
1000. If such a reduction should re-
suit there would be an annual saving
of $1,000 human lives"
IMPROVED SANITATION PAYS.
Professor C. E. A. Winslow of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
reported a study of the effect OF I'M
proved ventilation on the efficiency OF
factory operatives.
Surgeon-General Simon Won INTER
berger of st. Petersburg gave his views
on "Heredity in tuberculosis and DR..
Carl Hart of Berlin, spoke of pre-
disposition of the apices of the lungs
to pulmonary tuberculosis.
DR.. Samuel Bernham of Paris, quot
ing from clinical facts and experiments
on animals, drew the conclusion that
tuberculosis is chiefly transmitted by
aerial germs and by way of the res
piratory tract.
CALIFORNIA CATTLE INFECTION.
George A. Baker, inspector in charge
of the San Francisco Office of the Blu
reau of Animal Industry, read a paper
on Tuberculosis in Range Cattle in
California"
THE impression is very widespread
that an outdoor life will not only pre-
vent, but cure tuberculosis, both in
the human and the bovine" DR.. Baker
said This is true only so far as
there is freedom from infection.
MY attention was first directed to
this in 1900, when in conducting post
norton examinations OF bunch Of
steers, | found o of l per cent showing
tubercular LESSONS. Careful records
were kept of this range till April Is,
1906, when unfortunately they were de-
stroyed by fire, but these records
showed a constant increase in tubercu-
losis until at the end of 1905 we were
getting over g per cent tubercular.
IF it is true that the bovine is
not susceptible to tuberculosis; that
only the strongest, most virulent type
of organism can induce the disease
fbar a. fO1louo that wa are breeding