Municipal duty as to the prevention of tuberculosis : paper read by John C. M'Vail in opening a discussion at a meeting of the Civic Society of Glasgow, November 23, 1899.

  • John McVail
Date:
[1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Municipal duty as to the prevention of tuberculosis : paper read by John C. M'Vail in opening a discussion at a meeting of the Civic Society of Glasgow, November 23, 1899. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    [Jteprtnted from The Sanitary Journal, N'ovember, 1899.] MUNICIPAL DUTY AS TO THE PEEVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS.* The subject of tbe discussion whicli I am asked to open to-nigbt has been selected by the Society's committee, and the selection is indicative of the importance which is now attached to the prevention of tuberculosis. The interest taken in the question is not surprising. A quarter of a century ago consumption was looked on, popularly, and even professionally, as a physical curse, passing on from one generation to another, sometimes loosening but never letting go its hereditary grip of the families which, in some unlmown way, had come within the wide sphere of its evil influence. Nothing could be relied on to prevent attack, and the science of medicine could, as a rule, only prolong life and palliate suffering. For the afflicted families the outlook was indeed gloomy, and it had become all the darker with the advance of civilisation and the increased appreciation of the value of human life, and the freer play of natural affection which had accompanied the lessening of the keenness of the struggle for the mere necessaries of existence. Into this gloom Koch's discovery of the tubercle bacillus came as a ray of light some seventeen years ago. The public, indeed, did not fully appreciate its significance, but it raised high hopes in the breasts of medical men, and only two years later a congress of the Sanitary Institute, held in Glasgow, accepted almost, as a matter of course, the view that the' whole subject of tuberculosis had even then been brought fairly withm the domain of preventive medicine Later came the sanguine expectation of an inoculative cure for phthisis, followed by a natural reaction of disappointment And now, at length, we have the whole civilised world He;rtnf\KloSL'e?o^^ Medical Officer of at a meeting of the Civic BooiX'orGil^:^^:'^^^^^^