The war against consumption: a popular handbook of the proceedings of the British Congress on Tuberculosis, London, 1901 / by Dennis Vinrace ; revised by John H. Vinrace.
- Vinrace, Edward Dennis.
- Date:
- 1902
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The war against consumption: a popular handbook of the proceedings of the British Congress on Tuberculosis, London, 1901 / by Dennis Vinrace ; revised by John H. Vinrace. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![them into two gi’oups; Cases in which the patients are chiefly responsible; and cases in which their medical men are mainly responsible. With regard to the former class, he has found that the chief factors have been : Long delay in taking medical advice, in the belief that the ailment was due to a cold or some other temporary cause, refusal to follow good advice till frightened by the appearance of serious symptoms, or delay in following advice on the ground of expense. As to the res])onsibility of medical men, Dr. Dardswell attributes failure to take early action to the following causes: (1) Pailure to diagnose true nature of disease until far advanced, the cases having been treated as muscu- lar rheumatism, anaemia, debility, chills, influenza, etc. (2) Concealment of the natiire of the disease, when diagnosed, from the patient. (3) The adoption of merelv symptomatic treatment, on the apparent assumption that the disease is in- evitably fatal, until friends or relations insist upon sanatorium treatment as a last hope. (4) An unsuccessful attempt to apply sanatoriinii treatment at home. As to the wav in which these unnecessary delays in taking active measures can be obviated. Dr. Bardswell suggests that, as far as patients and their friends are concerned, the dis- semination of a better knowledge of the nature of the disease is the main remedy, and he thinks that, in this direction, much educational work might be done by medical men. With regard to delays for which medical men are themselves responsible, I may quote Dr. Dardswell as follows:- ‘‘Firstly, as to failure to diagnose the disease in an early stage, and sometimes, indeed, in a fairlv, or well-advanced stage. Granting that physical signs of early phthisis are often veiy slight or very indefinite, and that early symptoms are so insidious that it is often diffl-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24991879_0061.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
