The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-06-29


 our lease The highest duty which can rest upon the commissioners is the pro lection of public health. I do not believe that the commissioners will either strangle or permit this work to be strongled in its cradle or fail to give 1t every necessary facility to grow and per petuate itself until the deadliest enemy of the human race has been met and con quered.
 q submit herewith letters received from pr. E. M. Mason, physician in charge at this time of the camp, and also complete indorsement of the same by pr. Cunningham Wilson, Dr. H. s. Ward, and pr. B. S. Lester. Dr. Ward and Lester are part of our medical staff. These letters explain themselves and fur nish all the refutation necessary to the reputed arguments against the lease:'
 Birmingham, June 2S, 1911. Hon. Sydney J. Bowie, President Jeff
 ferson County Anu-Tuberculosis Asso-
 citation, City.
 Dear Sir:-In compliance with your re-
 
 ing data and observations with refer ence to the anti-tuberculosis camp
 "The camp Is located on the eastern slope of Red mountain. probably one half mile from the nearest residence, and a much greater distance from any con- siderable number of people. A pavilion provides accommodations for P patients but those who are able to be out of bed usually prefer to occupy tents. The tents are all new. large, weather proof, com fortable and well furnished. Each tent
 is elevated above the ground and we'll fioored. The pavilion, kitchen, and the dining room are screened. Two large in- cinerators are maintained wherein kitch- cn refuse, garbage, and all waste mat ters are burned. Each patient is re- quired to hold a cloth berore his mouth when coughing, and no patient IS per mitted to spit except in his individual sputum cup. Any patient violating this rule is expelled. All urine feces, spitum, infected handkerchiefs, etc., are burned, our most rigid rule being that we com pei the incneration of each particle of infected matter.
 Patients are taught the nature of the disease which they have to combat, and soon learn the precautions that must be observed to prevent reinfection of them- selves as well as transmission of the disease Tuberculosis cannot arise de novo, nor can one contract it as one would contract, for instance, smallpox, by mere proximity to patient. One can only acquire the tuberculosis germ from the excreta of a patient, chiefly spitum If these be destroyed, there can be no tuberculosis It is automatic that if every tubercular bacillus could be killed there would never be another case of consump- ton.
 At the camp we are enabling patients to throw off the infection already eX- isting and are destroying all infected mat ter from each patient. Therefore, no tuberculosis can be dissiminated from the camp, or from any other properly regu- lated institution for its treatment So true is this that well informed per- son will deny that the citizens would be in less danger of contracting this disease if our camp occupied the most central business block of the city than they are as the conditions now exist in this and every other city. Every properly isolated case of tuberculosis ceases to be a menace to the community, while every unrecognized, uncontrolled infected individual casts off daily in his excreta millions of tubercular germs Tn Birmingham proper it is estimated that there are at least 35O0 cases of tuber- culosis. The vast majority of these patients are about the streets, public buildings stores and theatres, expectorat- ing when and where they will. On the one hand sanatorium patients are iso lated and the public is protected, on the other there is no control, no isolation, and no protection to the community.
 Tn other cities the value of numerous and centrally located tuberculosis hos pitals is accepted without question. These institutions at first met with objection from the ignorant and misinformed, but having proven that they are guardians of rather than menaces to public health they are now enthusiastically supported. few illustrations will suffice. Tn Baltimore the Phpps dispensary is located at Broadway and Monument streets; in Philadelphia the Phipps insti- ute is located at 23S Pine street. In New York there are clinics in every borough. | In Washington the Red Cross day camp 1 is located at 923 Twenty-sixth street,
 northwest, and the tuberculosis hospital for the District of Columbia at Four teenth and Upshur streets. In Chicago there are free clinics throughout the | city. In Boston there are more than a dozen clinics and hospitals within the l city.
 | Coming nearer home. at Atlanta within | five miles of the city hall there is a splendid sanatorium just completed, built and maintained at the joint expense of | the city and county Similar institutions exist in every important city in the United Stats. These institutions are sit
 uated in the residential districts of their respective towns, yet no complaint or fear Our camp is beyond sight, hearing and walking distance of any present or pros pective residential section. Even if our camp were possible source of infection. those persons who profess to fear 1t would have to subject themselves to con siderable inconvenience in order to reach the hypothetical danger zone surround ing it. Yet these same persons daily and almost hourly meet and freely min gle with a greater number of tubercular 1 individuals on the city streets than our camp could accommodate.
 "Every broad minded humanitarian
 movement in the history of the world has been opposed by ignorance and prejudice; 1.-the effort to control tuberculosis can
 hope for no exemption; but our cause is
 good our work is based on scientific study of the disease and the results ob- ltained sneak for themselves I would | add that more than half of the patients
 now in the sanatorium are maintained
 free and there are 40 indgent applicants