Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1909-02-24
GREAT WHITE PLAGUE.
REPORT OF THE FIRST YEARS
WORK AT THE STATE
SANATORIUM.
Iowa's Institution for Treatment of
tuberculosis Cures Eighty Per
Cent of Cases Received Dur
ing First Year.

In an effort to curtail the annual
exodus of hundreds of citizens to
western states and to afford relief
to those whose financial condition
renders effective treatment here or
elsewhere impossible, the Iowa
State Legislature, three years ago
decided to provide an institution
for the treatment of tuberculosis.
The State Sanatorium located at
Oakdale, near Iowa City, was open
ed to patients on February /, 1908.
For the year just ended, two hun
dred and thirty-six patients have
been admitted, having reached it's
capacity in November with an aver
age of seventy-seven patients. Dur
ing the year more than four hundred
have been turned away as too far
advanced to be received. OF the
total number accepted only thirty
three, or fourteen per cent, proved
to be incipent or early cases, and of
this class eighty per cent, who re-
manned over two months, were sent
home apparently cured.
The sanatorium was built and
equipped for the treatment of in
cipient cases only, but while room
was available the more favorable
of the advanced cases were accepted
on trial for treatment. Of these
ninety per cent who remained two
months showed marked improve
ment. Such gratifying results JUS
tify making provision for the treat
ment of this class of patients.
The statement that tuberculosis
strikes down those of greatest value
to society is abundantly proven by
the fact that of the two hundred
and thirty-six admitted for treat
ment one hundred and six, or nearly
| fifty per cent, were between the ages
of twenty and thirty years. While
generous appropriations are being
made each year for the support of
education how much more import
| ant is it that equally liberal expen-
diture be approved by the state for
the eradication of a disease which
| is levying its toll of death annually
upon hundreds of young citizens
just as they are prepared to enter
the most productive period of life.
People all over the state have
been astonished at many of the re-
| markable results observed in friends
who have been patients at Oakdale.
This will be readily understood
from the fact that many have re-
turned home who have gained from
twenty-five TO forty pounds, with
corresponding improvement in their
lungs.
So accustomed have people become
TO look upon the west as the only
place where lung trouble can be
successfully combated that it is
with difficulty they can be convinced
that this is but another popular
fallacy which medical science long
since exploded. AS an incident in
point the experience of some who
have left the sanatorium and gone
west might be cited.
Three patients who have done this
write after several months soiourn
in the west that they have not done
so well there. One, a physician,
from the southern part of the state.
after five months in Colorado writes.
Tell the patients in the sanatorium
they are better off there than here"
TO many Iowa people it is a revela-
tlon that consumption can be cured
at all. To many others it is a
greater revelation that it can be
successfully treated without sever
ing the friendships and associations
of a lifetime and migrating to some
far off land where hope lends faith
to the fancy that by some phenomen-
on of nature relief may be obtained
without regard to the rules laid
down by medical science.
The sanatorium is affecting cures.
1t is doing more. 1t is educating
the people of Iowa to the necessities
or the work undertaken and point
ing the way to what is certain in
time to result in at least a partial
eradication of the Great White
Plague. 1t is disseminating a knowl-
edge of the sanitation which will
minimize infection and remove the
necessity for treatment on so broad
scale.