Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1914-12-02
THE TUBERCULOSIS QUESTION,

Editor Tribune:
AS a consequence of the lecture of
DR.. Hill last Tuesday evening there
has been considerable talk and some
misunderstanding in regard to this is
sue. 1t is of course difficult for ordi-
nary people to grasp professional sub
|jects and understand the scope of
technical terms. Permit me to make
a few statements as an attempt to
clarity matters.
F1RST-There is no urgent tuber-
culosis crisis in this county. DR.. Rains
has investigated as to the number Of
cases of tuberculosis in Willmar and
vicinity-that might be brought to a
hospital if we had one-and they are
less than half a dozen. They are now
being taken care Of as we'll and as
economically as if we had a hospital.
The Swift-Kandiyohi Medical Society
has deliberated on this problem and it
has come to the conclusion, that Kan
diyohi and Swift counties had better
wait and see what success the coun-
ties that have already built, have with
their hospitals. I am informed that
Ottertail county has built big tuber-
culosis hospital and that it is idle. OF
course in the big cities where there
are large number of pauper cases of
tuberculosis, hospital facilities are
necessary.
To build and equip tuberculosis
hospital is by no means so simple an
affair as enthusiastic state agents pre-
sent it to be. The State Board OF
Control now require fireproof struc
ture, and what the State Advisory
Board may in the future require as tt
equipment and doctors and nurses no
body can tell. It is true that the State
pretends to pay half of the expenses
but on the other hand assumes abso
lutte control. Possibly that is the pro
per way to do this, but it is anothe
link in the great Capitalization chair
that is now being forged for the PEG
pie of this state.
SECOND-The new health doctrin
that tuberculosis can be exterminate,
in fifteen or one hundred years b,
, forcible isolation of open cases of tn
berculosis is believed in by very, yer,
few physicians outside of state healt]
board enthusiasts. We ordinary doc
tors who meet everyday people il
their homes do not believe that it i
possible or practicable to take mem
bers of families out of their homes an
incasserate them for years or for lif
in a detention hospital even if the
DO suffer from consumption in lat
stage, and are expectorating T B b.
the millions day. We do not be
, Heve that consumption can be classe
with lepers, and handled as leper
: have been in the past or are today,
THIRD-Tuberculos is certainl
and gradually disappearing as tn
material and economical condition o
the average population improves. /
few families seem to be born with
, special liability-no resisting power t.
the germ. The average healthy indy
idual living normal, moral, sanitar
lives is in no danger Of the disease
80 per cent of all adults are infecte,
with the tuberculosis germ but tn
average ordinary person is immune t.
, it. A large percentage of adults hav
l had incipient consumption one or NOR
times in their lives and they have re
covered under rest and medication
, without they themselves, or even tn
doctors, suspected what was the mat
ter with them. Poverty, want, expos
ure, exhaustion, strain and malnutr
ton are the great causes of tubercr
, losis. OF course, no person Shout
| unnecessarily expose himself to infet
tion-or re-infection, especially in
run down condition. We all under
stand that now, and act upon it. We
the danger of serious trouble t.
healthy, normal people from exposur
to open cases in ordinary sanator
, honest don't refer to tenement an
slum population of the big cities-i
very small. Otherwise humanity woul
have been extinct now from pulmon
airy tuberculosis.
CHRISTIAN JOHNSON, MD.