The Washington herald., 1914-06-07

ASAAksASS "h ~
Hears the Verdict Pro-
nounced Public Expects
the Victims to Protect 1t.
In an article "some Confessions of a
| 'T.B.,' in the April Atlantic, William
| CARROT Brown gives a vivid description
! of the sensations OF the victims of tuber-
culosis when the discovery is made, and
discusses with frankness and from an
! intimate knowledge the treatment Of the
disease and the heavy handicap which
the public lays upon the sufferers. Fol-
| lowing are extracts from this interesting
article:
It Is necessary to tell first what a
T.B.' is? For the readers sake / trust
| that II Is necessary. He Is to be congrat-
ulated. on the whole, IL It has never
| been his lot to have to be much con-
cerned about us. or to have to study US
and our ways.
Not. however, that 1t is wise of the
public to ignore us, or even possible.
We are too many for that policy TO be
practicable. and there are too many
reasons why It would not be a good
policy. either for the public or for US.
We are. in fact, a public question.
whether the public likes It or not, and
| we cannot cease to be one till the public
finds the indisputably right way to
dispose of us-or our order ceases to
exist. To know about us is a public
necessity, a public duty. lucky as it may
be for individual citizens to escape their
share of IT,
Yet not because we are a particularly
lugubrious or depressing lot. either. On
the contrary, it has often been remarked
that We are rather surprisingly CHEEKY
and hopeful. There is no reproach in
belonging to our brotherhood; no shame
in telling what We are like. French
man who has written a novel about US
calls US The Half Dead Ues Demi- -Morts).
The phrase is good. but 1t is not quite
accurate. Some Of us are happy to feel
that we are not nearly as dead as that:
others Of US claim, not without an equal
sense of superiority, to be a good deal
deader. We range, in fact, all the way
from imperceptibly less than fully alive,
to obviously as nearly dead as still alive
can be. We are an unequal gallery of all
tine grades and shades of human vitality:
complete procession strung out over
the entire length of our own particular
road-really. We do not find 1t especially
place where all roads end.
Prefer the Term ct. B."
Another phrase in very common use
sets US down as victims Of The Great
White Plague but We do not understand
it. We find no point in white beyond
its being in contradistinction to an his
toric something in the plague line that
was black and plague suggests, though
oIlx,
degree of contagiousness, and an cpl
demic quality. which in point Of fact
do not belong to that which binds US to-
gether; on this We have good reason to
insist. We prefer. rather. the Western
usage that designates US 1ungers:' in
elegant. perhaps. but not so practically
damaging.
On the whole, however. We like best
to call ourselves Tbs The sugges-
ton OF DTS is but momentary. the re-
covery from it amusing. and by selecting
this name for our brotherhood We indi-
cate our preference for the modern and
hopeful title. tuberculosis rather than
consumption which medical science SO
long and desparingly shook its head over
hasten to qualify. If hopeful means
anything like confident or cocksure or
anything more than insistent that there
is hope. it were better. perhaps. if the
more hopeful term were less widely used !
and the daunting finality OF the older
nomenclature more often candidly ac-
cepted.
For on this point a great mistake has |
been made. Soon after the newer term
came into use and soon after the dis |
covery of the precise meaning of both |
terms, and because of certain other en- |
couragins discoveries that quickly fol- |
lowed, the notion spread widely that !
science had won a complete triumph: that |
an immemorial scourge and woe of
humanity had been surely mastered !
Once, four or five years ago. when 1 had
explained to a man of proved intelli-
gence and fair information. that for
some time l had had TO live life with
drawn and limited. that 1 was. In fact.
not complete and ordinary man but
T.B.. and when 1 naturally expected an
impressed and sympathizing response, |
got instead an astonishingly unimpressed
one. Oh he said carelessly, I'm no
longer afraid Of that There was pique,
no doubt, but there was also deep con-
Germ in my remonstrance. His nonchal-
ance appalled, me. Yet it was, and still
Is, common.
.'Non-Resident Members"
1t was that, really. which started me
|
better that people should know that once
a B. is. in all but very small minority
# instances, always a TB. Indeed It
may be wiser and also more scientific
and accurate, to make no exceptions at
ALTO insist that there is no way to
entirely from our order, when
one has once come into it-except, Of
course. by the exit we and all mankind
are striving to delay. True, there are
many who give up this active member
ship-some for a time, a few for good
and all. They leave our habitats: they
hey are very likely to reappear. and they
If nonresident membership.
What hear the reader exclaim, then
here are no cures? You declare the
hing incurable?
Oh, no: by no means. The great pro-
Is has considered the matter. and at a
rational convention devoted entirely to
,ur little abnormality, one member has
declared it to be so easily cured that 1t
AN be cured four or five times in the
ious and least sanguine of these learned
gentlemen merely insisted that the word
,ured' should be always put in mental
quotation marks, and that they do not
guarantee that those they cure will stay
'ured Another of them suggested that
ne who has thus recovered should al
Ways say, in relating his experience, not
had the thing and am cured but L
ave it and am cured Perhaps 1 should
i'd that many of the most experienced
napf z-Af -, H. tsrvoI