The Detroit tribune. (Detroit, Mich.) 1935-1966, 1936-12-12
The Death-Fighters
Are At Work Here


Thee months later this little one
is coughing. feverish, and then
pitifully gasping with the horrid
gurgling breathing of tuberculosis
acknowledgement all help incu-
rable and 1t is an example of Gods
mercy how quickly that baby pass
ed from all suffering.
Now, when it is too late, the
health department gives the tuber-
culin test to the lost baby's eight
brothers and sisters. And in every
one of them the tell-tale red spot
shows the lurking of the TB micro
bes.
Instead of the few x-rays films
that have been needed to trace the
sickness and to warn the father and
mother not to trust their children
to the care of this deadly Aunty,
eight X-ray films have to be taken
every so often, every six months,
year after year of the eight chill
dren. Because the first films in ev-
cry last one of them, showed the
childhood type of tuberculosis, not
active mind you but still ominous
in the lungs and absolutely fatal
at last If the children are not
cured.
For this is one of the sinister
tricks of the TB microbe, that when
it gets into your lungs in child
hood and remains inactive, it
doesn't guard you, doesn't vacci-
nate you-as siege of diphtheria
from which you recover may there
after make you immune. On the
contrary the presence of the TB
microbe makes you more exquisite
ly susceptible to new doses of TB
death when this is coughed at you
by some other consumptive.
So, because there wasn't the
wherewithal to educate to make
X-ray films to closely follow up
that homicidal Aunty, an entire
family of nine youngsters-eight
left-who might otherwise have
been sound and strong and free
from TBS danger now have the
White Deaths threat hanging over
them. Let's forget the tragedy of
that little white coffin leaving the
household. Since it is not your
child who died you'll maybe say
the family had enough children,
anyway. A baby's death does not
show red on the city's ledgers-
Dot immediately-and, after all
economy is really all that matters,
fince life itself is cheap.
But it is going to be frightful
waste of the City's money to keep
track Of that baby's eight brothers
dnd sisters because of the city's
economy in the small matter of the
death dealing Aunty.
Aunty is really a nice person,
you know. Her feelings should not
lie hurt by compelling her to go to
d hospital and stay there until she
is either put in a coffin or goes out
the hospital door on her two feet,
happy restored to health and no
longer a menace to those who are
dear to her and a menace to the
rtest of us.
Let Aunty say that she shall do
dnd let all of us kind-hearted sis
tiers let Aunty have her way about
il. Let her go her death dealing
way. 1t would cost a little money,
anyhow, for us to take her case
seriously in hand and head off the
Wholesale destruction she ignor-
ant determines to cough at little
children
But the degenerate kidnaper and
slayer of little girl-get after
him. Call on the United States
Treasury to pay enough Omen to
track him down. The hunt is on 1t
is sensational. And we can pay any
amount for a sensation. The death
needless death-of little children
from tuberculosis is no longer a
sensation. We are used to it.
n