The Nome daily nugget., 1937-08-28

l tries that Q
 lower tuberculosis death rates. These figures are for 192S-1932 The listing for 1884 is not available yet because 1t takes time to tabulate the enormous amount of data.
 Tuberculosis is one of the most prev. alent of all contagious diseases. It is rightly called the white plague. It is spread over muck of the known world.
 And 1t Is different from most of our other contagious diseases, which are what we call acute. If any one has typhoid fever, dlphtheria. measles. scarlet fever, humps or whooping cough. he has a period of a few days to three weeks when he is confined to bed. But recovery takes place prompt ly after the fever stage Is over. Tu- berculosis, on the contrary, Is chron- ic disease. It can extend over period of years. In the beginning stages pa- tients may hardly be aware that they have it.
 It isn't only the human race that has tuberculosis. Animals also can get 1t. Fish, turtles and frogs have tubercu- losis. Birds, chickens and turkeys have tuberculosis. Cows have tuber- culosis. The cold-blooded animals are infected with a tubercle bacillus that grows only at low temperature. and hence cannot grow in man. Birds have a higher temperature than man. con. sequently 1t is hard to infect us with their tubercle bacillus. Some human cases have been reported. but avian tuberculosis in man is extremely rare. The tubercle bacilll that COWS have. however. can grow in man and cause tuberculosis. But the disease is diff. ferent from the true human type, as the lungs are seldom involved in bo- vine or cattle tuberculosis in man. Tuberculosis of the bOnes joints and glands in children, however, are often times caused by this particular kind of tubercle bacilll.
 Most of US have breathed In or swal- lowed living tubercle bacilli many times before we reach adolescent age. When the bacilli enter the body, they either are killed off quickly or else they find lodgment in some organ, usually the lungs, and there they grow in a small local spot of tissue. When the growth Is very slow, as 1t is in . healthy person, then the surrounding tissues can wall off the infected area. It is as If few thousand soldiers of an enemy country had succeeded in en. tering the center of some state, and then the defense soldiers of that state, who could not drive them out had sealed them up in a tight.walled en- closure. Now if these invaders were able to live on the water, air and food that percolated through the wall. then you would have the same situation as exists in n waled-in tubercle foci. The invaders are harmless 80 long as the wall holds them prisoners, but if the wall gives away, we find an invading army right in our midst. Undernourish- ment and long levers, such as undulant fever, rabbit fever and parrot fever, and whoopng cough, humps, diabetes and anemia, all tend to lower the body resistance and open up holes in the walls enclosing the germ prisoners. The bacilli swarm out of the opening, and spread rapidly through the adjoin- ing tissues.
 The best way to prevent tuberculosis Is to prevent the tubercle bacilli from getting into our bodies. But this Is almost impossible to do in the present conditions of modern civilization. We have to mix with too many different people. Did you ever count the num- Der of persons you talk with daily, shake hands with, or stand or sit next to in q movie theater, church, restau- rant, store, street car or bus?
 One should almost have to live on desert island, with absolutely no con- tact with the outside world, to be safe from infection.
 Consequently, since we can hardly prevent tuberculosis germs from con- ing into our bodies, the next best thing to do is to keep our bodily health in such daily good condition that we can destroy the germs that do get in, or, if the dose is beyond our ability to de- stroy, that we can imprison them in the capsule form just described. Then our chances are very good for going through life without being invaded by this disease.
 l Q Western Newspaper Union,