Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-01-15
THE GREAT White PLAGUE.
Credited With One Death Out Of
Every Seven.
NOW HUMANITY'S GREATEST SCOURGE.


full Progress In Discussing Its Rea
Nature, and the Earnest, Intelligent
Cooperation of the Public Woule
! Soon Wipe It Out of Existence.
DR.. E. w. Pressly Of Glover, has
kindly put in writing the interesting
remarks he made at the recent meeting
of the York County Medical association
and it gives us pleasure to reproduce
what he has written as follows:
tuberculosis is a subject worthy the
Iprofoundest thoughts of the ablest minds
in the medical profession. For while
since the beginning of the historic era,
war and pestilence have at frequent In
tervals slain their thousands, tubercu-
losis is daily Staying it's tens of thou
sands. One seventh of all deaths that
occur are due to some Of the many
manifestations of this plague. 1t has
no regard for latitude or longitude.
Go to the uttermost corners of the
earth, follow the remotest waves Of the
sea-" and if. there you find hu-
man habitation, there too, you will
find the bacillus tuberculosis. Make
your home beneath equatorial suns
and tropical palms. and there will you
find the graves Of the tuberculous.
Wander amid Arctic ice and polar
SHOWS and its dead are there. Even in
our own heaven blest, temperate cline,
where civilization has reached it's high
est attainments, where the natural SAN
itation is all that could be desired, and
where medical science has made its
maximum advances, even here mil
iiCns, "since first the race Of time be.
gam" have yielded up their being be-
fore the onslaughts of this dread de-
stroyer.
So that, in practically every house.
hold are heard lamentations: Rachel
weeping for her children and refusing
to be comforted because they are not
1t makes no exception for age, or sex,
or race, or condition in life. Peasant
and prince, pauper and millionaire
like feel it's blighting breath and take
up their long march, which has hereto
fore ended with such startling unanim-
ity in that dark inn, the grave Mem
bers of the medical profession fully
acquainted with the dangers they run
in their daily combat with this Destroy
er, whether in the sick room or the
laboratory, have over and over again
fallen under the prowess Of this infec-
tiCn and given up their lives, as truly
martyrs to the cause Of humanity as
ever were those who, three hundred
years ago in defense of their religion,
with the Light of heaven in their eye,
and the psalms of David on their lips,
marched with unfaltering steps to the
gibbet or the stakes. Such heroes as
these are infinitely more deserving of
monuments than are the military con-
Iuerors, whose glory cost hecatombs Of
the lives of their fellowmen and seas
of blood
For whether on the scaffold high
Or in the battles van,
The noblest death that man can die
Is where he dies for man."
Such then being the record Of this
disease, past and present, anything that
promises a limitation of its ravages
deserves our serious attention. Medical
science has conquered smallpox, it
has robbed diphtheria of 9-1Oths of its
terrors, and it has banished cholera
and the black plague from the face OF
civilization Who then shall say that
it can go no further? Nay verify, when
the rose leaf can be made to stab like
a bayonet, when the tongue can be
poisoned with honey gotten from the
blossoming violet when bitter is
sweet, and sweet is bitter, when the
spirit of eternal darkness can dis
course intelligibly on the brightness CT
everlasting day, when every law and
order and process Of nature is inverted
then and not till then, shall medical
science saying here, too, shall we come
and no further and here shall our be-
Inefficient efforts cease.
But happily, we are not dependent
IN long and tedious laboratory re-
searches yet to be made for a way of
prevention. 1t is already known and
known too, not to the wise savants in
the profession alCne, but by the rank
and file, as we'll as known to every ply
sican in York county. And happily, this
remedy is not so costly as to be beyond
the reach of all but millionaires, nor is
50 complicated that 1t can only be
administered by one possessed of lab
oratory facilities. Enough is known to-
day of the life, history, habits and
vulnerability of the tubercle bacillus
that if it could be vigorously carried out
in every case from its incipiency to its
else, within the life time Of a sing.e
generation, case of tuberculosis would
become a medical curiosity. Now, this
is a broad and sweeping statement,
but it is amply borne out by the facts.
Gods sunshine and His air are the two
agencies by which this enemy CT our
race is at last to be overcome.
And happily neither Saranac lake in
the Adirondacks, rOr the government
sanatorium in New Mexico have mo-
nopoly on these two elements. Given
climate of a reasonable degree Of mois-
ture and as nearly as maybe free from
dust, and the regimen of Saranac and
the results attained at Saranac can be
duplicated in the Piedmont region of
South Carolina. Now, in a study of
.revention our subject naturally falls
into two divisions, viz, prevention of
Is spread in a household, where Cne
or more members are already infected
and prevention in that general sense
which proposes to begin a world wide
crusade against this destroyer, until
il shall have been banished from the
face of civilization. Now, for the first
necessity in preventing its spread In
previously infected household, the ply
sicians everywhere must grid up their
oinS and so familiarize themselves
with the symptOmatOlOgy of the disease
as to be able to recognize the disease
in its incipiency and having realized
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