The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-09-08
White Plague Haunts
 Nations Of Europe
vIrWl v
Statistics Indcatee That Tuberculosis Is Gaining in
 War.StriCken Countries; Resistance Lowered

Tuberculosis has allied itself to the war in menacing the lives and health of European peoples. From data now available, statisticianS ot the Metropolitan Life Insprance company report 1t Is clear that tuberculosis is on the increase abroad and that the splendid record of accomplishment in the control ot the disease throughout the world is being seriously threatened as 0 result of war conditions"
 "Even in those countries the anti tuberculosis campaign had been best organized, the disease is now finding fertile soil for growth" the statis- ticians explain. "In less advanced countries, where the mortality from tuberculosis is normally high, the death rate from the disease is likely to mount to frightful proportions, as happened in the last war"
 The statisticians explain that while the tuberculosis death rate in England and Wales in 1889 showed Q slight rise among male civilians, the rise between 1889 and i940 af- fected both males and females. Among males the death rate rose i3 per cent, from 77.i per 100000 to STA; for females the tuberculosis death rate in io40 was SAT per l00,- 900 as against 6o.o for 1889, an in. crease of 2 per cent.
 In Scotland the situation differed little from that of England and Wales. The tuberculosis death rate increased i4 per cent in i040 as com- pared with 1889, and was the high. est of any year since 1882. While no rise in the tuberculosis death rate occurred in Canada last year, 1t is significant that the rate for the first half Of i94l showed an in- crease.
 An increase in the disease has probably also been experienced by Germany, the statiSticians say, al. though current statistics from 1t and from occupied countries are not available. In France, the Vichy gov. ernment reports sharp increase.
 '"The longer the war conditions and the further 1t extends" the statisticians declare, "the greater will be the increase in tuberculosis, particularly on the Continent. The experience of the World War of 19l4-i9ie affords an indication of what is likely to occur. None Of the belligerent countries escaped an increase in tuberculosis then, and practically all of the neutral couf. tries of Europe suffered either an increase In tuberculosis or Q slowing up of the prewar rate of decl!ne.'
 AS instances of the havoc wrought by tuberculosis during the World War, the statistician points out that:
 Among English women, mortality from pulmonary tuberculosis rose steadily to e peak in 1918, when 1t was more than 26 per cent higher than in 1913; in Germany, the death rate from the disease among women rose slowly at first, but after 1916 the increase was very rapid, so that by 1918 the rate was nearly 75 per cent above that of 1913. Bad as these conditions were, the situa- ton among other belligerent nations was far worse. While in 1913 the tuberculois death rate in France was reported as 20 per cent greater than 1914, 1t probably was much higher. Tn Italy the recorded deaths from tuberculosis were at least 40 per cent higher in 1918 than in 1914. Tn Bel gium the conditions were extremely bad, with the tuberculosis death rate in Brussels, for instance, doubling during the war, rising from l77 per 100000 in 1914 to 390 in 1913. The rate rose 50 per cent in Vienna tn the early postwar years as com pared with the pre-war rate. Tn Bel grade, the tuberculosis death rate in 1918 reached the almost incredible figure of 1.400 per 100000"
 Even in the United States slight