State control of tuberculosis.

  • Charles V. Chapin
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State control of tuberculosis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    diminution wliicli has, of recent year.s, taken place, it does not, luider favorable conditions, cause more than one-ninth or even one-tenth of the deaths. It is diffi- cult to determine just what proportion of tubercular deaths is due to other forms. The recent Royal Com- mission considered that al)out one-quarter of tubercular diseases are not phthisical. In Providence, however, probably not over 15 per cent, are non-phthisical. It is only in infancy that non-phthisical forms are the most prevalent. In Massachusetts, under one year, the non-phthisical are to the phthisical as 116 to 11, and Ijetween the first and fifteenth year, as 61 to 37'. The non-phthisical forms of the disease Ave are consider- ing are retiu^ned, sometimes, as tuberculosis, some- times as tubercular meningitis, laryngitis, etc.; again, as hydrocephalous or lu])us. Diseases of the bones and joints and intestinal diseases, especially in young chil- dren, are very commonly due to tubercular infection. In this connection, it must be remembered that the deaths do not by any means represent all the cases. Tuberculosis is not infrequently recovered from, though it leaves its traces in the organism. Marks of tuber- cular infection are frequently found at the autopsy of persons who have died of other affections. Knopf says that traces of tuberculosis are found in 25 per cent, of all such autopsies. In the New York hospitals it runs as high as 30 per cent., and in Vienna, where the disease is particularly prevalent, the marks of tuberculosis are said to l)e found in (S5 per cent, of all autopsies. A very large number of species of the lower animals are also suljject to tuberculosis, particularly domestic animals oi wild animals kept in confinement.