The Springfield herald., 1909-05-21
PREVENTION OF
TUBERCULOSIS
SPEAKER CANNON HAS HUMOR-
GUS TILT WITH DOC
TOR oSLER.
0SLER IS OPTIMISTIC
GREATEST DANGER TO CHILDREN
DECLARED TO BE AsSoclA-
TIoN WITH CONSERVATIVES.

washington.-Speak Cannon is not
bit afraid of DR.. Osler and his old-age
theory. He told DR.. Osler so Friday
during an address before the National
Association for the Study of Tubercu-
losis.
Doctor Osler, l have reached the
age of sixty-one, and | shake my fist
in your face" he said.
Dr. Osler laughed heartily at this
def of his old-age theory.
The speaker harked back to the days
of his childhood, when bathtubs were
almost unheard of and when the snow
would sift in and cover those lying in
bed.
I'VE had plenty of fresh air then, on
the Wabash, and everywhere on the
frontier. before the railroads. he said.
Mr.. Cannon favored more play
grounds for children but urged that the
legislator be dealt with gently If he
did not do everything wanted of him.
DR.. Osler in his address said tuber-
culoss no longer was problem of the
doctors and that it probably would take
two or three generations to reduce its
ravages to the present rate of typhoid.
DR.. Osler congratulated the associa-
tion on having accomplished the awak-
ening of the public, legislatures, phil
anthropists, physicians.
Three things remained to be done,
said DR.. Osler. The first was to keep
the public awake the second to obtain
more money and the third to arouse
the interest of more men and women,
because the campaign was no longer
one entirely for the doctors.
whether tuberculosis will be final
ly eradicated," he declared, sis even an
open question, but when We think of
what has been done in one generation,
how the mortality in many places has
been reduced more than fifty per cent,
indeed in some places 100 per cent.
1T is battle of hope with victory in
sight"
That there is tendency to overrate
the danger to children from milk from
tuberculosis cattle was the decided
view expressed by the speakers.
Drs. Henry l.. X. Shaw and Arthur
T. Laird of Albany, N. Y, took the
position that the attention of the pub
lie should not be diverted from the
great and real danger of human con-
tagion. If, they argued, tuber-
culosis milk was as virulent as so
many declared. it was difficult to con-
ceive how any children escaped infec-
ton. A diagnosis of tuberculosis in a
child by rational symptoms alone, they
contended, was impossible in the early
stages. They declared that the history
of tuberculosis in the family OF sick
child was almost a prior evidence OF
the presence of some form of tubercu-
losis. The association of the child with
tuberculosis parents or other consump-
tives, they said, was a matter of such
importance in the diagnosis as well as
in the prevention of the disease that
every member of a tuberculosis family
should be examined as matter of rou-
tine. Infection during life, they said,
might take place through the air and
from food. but the infection form was
probably. by far the most common
route. Children especially were eX-
posed to infection because of their ir-
TeSlSllple Impulse W pidSe eNSiS 'hihS
in their mouths.
A resolution was presented by
Health Officer Greensfelder of st. Lou
is, urging the creation of the office OF
Secretary of Health in the Cabinet of
the President.
Brig. Gen. George A. Sternberg, for
mer surgeon general of the army, op-
posed the creation of such an office,
saying that he did not believe In hav-
ing a political doctor in charge of the
nations health.
The resolution was laid on the table
by decisive vote.
The following officers were elected
for the ensuing year:
President. DR.. e. ]. Janeway, New
York; first vice president, Edward T.
Devine, New York; second vice presi-
dent, DR.. Henry Sewall, Denver, treas
urer, DR.. George NJ. Sternberg, Wash
ington.