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THE MODERN WAY OF FIGHTING ‘TUBERCLE: BACILLI. Patients Sit Out of Doors In Zero Weather Light Hours a Day—HKill ing the Bacillus—Two Inches of Snow on the Bedroom Floor. {Special Correspondence. } LIBERTY, N. XY. March 12.—It is not unusual for the prosperity of whole communities to depend upon a solitary industry which is peculiarly local. In northern Maine, for instance, is a pop ulous town devoted to the making of spools. But what do you think of fight ing consumption as a business? That is what they do up here. It is the chief local industry. In this picturesque village, 2,300 feet above the sea level, an army of doctors, nurses, merchants, hackmen and the like make it their business to engage in the routing of tu berculosis, using the most modern methods, applied according to the lat est scientific theories. There are sev eral hotels and sanitariums, one of A PATIENT “‘TAKING THE CURE,” which accommodates 125 guests, each and every guest being a patient who has come to be treated for lung dis ease. On the porches of the sanitariums, hotels and boarding houses the pa tients, wearing fur capes, fur gloves, heavy olsters and four buckle arctics and wrapped about the knees with rugs, sit in the open air for many hours each day, “taking the cure,” as it is called, even when the mercury touches the zero mark and then drops below. At night, no matter how cold it is, they sleep with windows open wide. At the principal sanitarium the rule is that each patient shall remain out of doors at least eight hours during the day, and as the patient also sleeps with wide opened windows he is practically out of doors all the time except when at meals. Two inches of snow on the bedroom floor near the window is quite an ordinary sight here in the morning. The physician in charge of the lead ing sanitarium, who is also professor of pulmonary diseases at the New York Postgraduate Medical school and member of the American Climatolog ical association, holds high rank as an authority on tuberculosis and its treatment. “Rur advanced cases of pulmonary tuberculosis are incurable,” the pro fessor said recently, “but in a small percentage of such cases the disease may be arrested and the patient’s con dition improved. Some moderately ad vanced cases are curable, and many incipient cases yield readily to treat ment, and the patients sare sent home cured. Of 178 incipient cases in one sanitarium 73 were apparently cured, 28 had the disease arrested, 71 were improved, 4 were unimproved and 2 died. Of 488 incipient, moderately ad vanced and for advanced cases 17 per cent were apparently cured, 8 per cent had the disease arrested, 44 per cent showed improvement, 27 per cent showed no improvement and 4 per cent died. No medicine, no treatment, has yet been discovered that will cure con sumption in all its stages of advance ment. The basis of treatment in all cases has been and is climatic, hygien ic and dietetic. In the way of auxil iary treatment are used antitubercle serum, ichthyol, kalagua, creosote and inhalations from the hot air inspirator and multiple comminuter. Static elec tricity is used for its tonic effect, and the X rays are utilized extensively as a means of diagnosis. The water treatment is also a feature, and treat attention is paid to the throat. As recklessness of expectoration is the great cause of the spread of the disedge each patient’s sputum, containing the deadly tubercle bacilli, is deposited in a receiver or box car ried by the patient and these boxes are burned twice a day. Patients who wantonly expectorate in the buildings or grounds are dismissed from the in stitution. Lack of care in destroying the sputum often causes death after death in the same family, and what seems like merciless fate is simply carelessness. “Patients who are able to resist the inroads of the disease are better off in a cold climate than in a warm one, and there are several places of moderate elevation that prove beneficial, while certain sections of Colorado are the best types of the very high, dry and cold climate. Patients who are unable to resist the disease are of course in curable, and a cold climate is too se vere for them. They are better off in such resorts as are to be found in Low er Caifornia, New Mexico, Arizona, etc. There the progress of the disease is slower in advanced cases, and life may be prolonged. For those who have means and are not compelled to seek lucrative employment for self support amateur cowboy life in the high and dry regions of Arizona and New Mex ico, has proved beneficial.’ The idea that consumption is inherted has ex ploded long ago. A saenstitation, however, may be inherited, and, then the individual will be m@e susceptible to the attack of the mercle bacilli. Any person who is in an anemic, rus down condition, with a persistent cough and sputum in the mor will do well to consult a recognized authority on pulmonary tuberculosis at once. When discovered in time, the disease may be cured, and the longer it is neglected the more dangerous it becomes. The spu tum should be examined at once and the patient X raged to confirm the di agnosis resulting from an examination with the ear, stethoscope, etc.” Sufferers from consumption have shown remarkable improvement here from the very beginning of their so journ. Gains of three, five and even seven pounds the first week are quite common, and many incipient patients show a gain of 20 or 25 pounds in a few months. The blood speedily be comes enriched, and there is a general improvement in the visitor's condition. After a number of months, if the pa tient is one of the fortunate ones, the cough stops, the bagilli disappear from the sputum, the sputum itself vanishes, and the patient goes home “a cure.” The tubercle bacillus was discovered in 1882 by Dr. Koch, the world famous German bacteriologist. We later an nounced the discovery of a lymph which would cure consumption, but it proved to be a failure when put to the test. Scores of eminent physicians, some of them at the government’s bid ding, are working at the problem, and it seems extremely probable that, like smallpox, yellow fever and diphtheria, this dread disease will ultimately be robbed of its terrors. The bacillus be longs to the vegetable kingdom and is not a bug, as many people suppose. Where it came from originally no one knows, but as it kills 100,000 people an nually in the United States alone its numbers must be infinite, despite the fact that every bacillus exposed to six hours of sunlight is rendered harmless. Fifteen minutes in boiling water is an other fatal experience for it, and a weak solution of carbolic acid will speedily put it out of business. It does not exist in nature outside the bodies of man and certain warm blooded ani mals. It varies in length from one fourth to one-half the diameter of a red blood cell and can only be discern ed when magnified many hundred times by the microscope and stained with aniline dyes. Post mortems indicate that thou sands of people who died of other dis eases have had pulmonary tuberculosis and have fought and cured the disease, many of them without knowing that they had it. When attacked by it, they did not feel well, made a determined effort to build up their systems and succeeded so thoroughly that the ba cilli were either destroyed or were walled in by new tissue and prevented from continuing their destructive ca reer. Kernels of calcareous formation are often found in the lungs of individ uals who have died of some other dis ease than tuberculosis, and these ker nels, upon being cracked open, are found to contain live bacilli, which have thus been imprisoned and ren dered harmless to the tissue about them. Persons who are in good health have little to fear from consumption. In temperance, bad air, overfatigue and dusty occupations, in the opinion of one authority, favor the spread of the dis ease. The presence of a consumptive among the well members of his family is always a peril, but it is a peril of infinitesimal character if the patient sleeps alone, if the dishes used by him are thoroughly sterilized after each meal, if he avoids kissing others and if his sputum is properly gathered in A PATIENT OUT FOR A DRIVE, receptacle each day and cremated. At the principal sanitarium here, for ex ample, about 600 patients have been cared for since the institution opened by scores of nurses and by numerous physicians, and yet, owing to the san itary precautions taken, no nurse or doctor has acquired the disease. The victims of “the great white plague” at Liberty are not a woebe g one set by any means. The great ma jority of the incipients are the picture of health, and it would be difficult to convince a stranger that they were ill. They read the latest books, enjoy sleigh rides over the picturesque hills, take walks, tell stories and get as many good, hearty laughs out of life as any one. Their fellow victims are dubbed “lungers,” and the microbes they are battling with on the cold, wind swept hills are irreverently referred to as “mikes.” Pulmonary tuberculosis is pretty serious business, but laughter is better than medicine, and good spirits are as much an enemy of the disease as is good digestion. These unfortunates are certainly giving the tubercle bacil lus a good Sight. Barre Hooxer-HATON.
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Cortland Standard
Cortland, New York, US
Tue, Mar 19, 1901
Page 4
Full Page
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Alicia C.
USA 12 Dec 2025
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