Tuberculosis and Missions

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 7, 1910

Tuberculosis and Missions

The International Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis has appointed Sunday, April 24, as a day when special instruction on this most important subject shall be given in every church throughout the United States. Ministers in these churches are to preach sermons pertaining to this matter on that day. The General Conference Committee has signified its desire that in all our churches proper discourses shall be given on this subject on Sabbath, April 23. Where church elders or others may so desire, the following article may be read:—

There is no subject before the people of the United States to-day that more intimately concerns them than that of tuberculosis. In his letter of acceptance of the presidency of the International Congress on Tuberculosis, held in Washington, Sept. 21 to Oct. 12, 1908, Mr. Roosevelt said:—

“The importance of the crusade against tuberculosis, in the interests of which this congress convenes, can not be overestimated when it is realized that tuberculosis costs our country two hundred thousand lives a year, and the entire world one million lives a year, besides constituting a most serious handicap to material progress, prosperity, and happiness, and being an enormous expense to society, most often in those walks of life where the burden is least bearable.”

“Science has demonstrated that this disease can be stamped out, but the rapidity and completeness with which this can be accomplished depend upon the promptness with which the new doctrines about tuberculosis can be inculcated into the minds of the people and engrafted upon our customs, habits, and laws.”

One of the most impressive exhibits at the congress on tuberculosis referred to above was three incandescent bulbs burning brightly in a row on a conspicuous board. At intervals of two minutes and thirty-six seconds the lights flashed out, then off again. Under the lights were these words:—

With each flash of the light, some one is dying of tuberculosis in the United States— 1 every 2 minutes, 36 seconds. 23 every hour. 548 every day. 200,000 every year (Mr. Roosevelt’s estimate). And every death is unnecessary because from a preventable disease.

The statisticians of the Prudential Life Insurance Company in 1904 estimated the annual cost to the United States because of tuberculosis to be $240,000,000, or approximately three dollars for every man, woman, and child. Tuberculosis is the cause of one seventh of all deaths.

Some of us are slow to believe that we as a people are as subject to tuberculosis as we are. Of the 265 deaths reported with causes in the REVIEW AND HERALD last year, tuberculosis was given as the cause in forty cases. This means that one in every 6½ deaths was the result of tuberculosis, an even higher rate than that of New York City for 1908, or of the District of Columbia for the past thirty years.

Three hundred eleven deaths were reported in the REVIEW last year without giving the cause. Supposing the percentage of deaths from tuberculosis is the same among these as among those where causes were given, which is more than likely, we should have reported in this paper eighty-seven deaths from this disease, in the United States only, last year.

An appalling feature of this is also that the great majority of these deaths were of people in early or middle life, when they should have been of the greatest service in the cause of God.

Compare these figures with the number of missionaries we sent out from this country. During last year we furnished ninety-eight persons, counting both the man and his wife where families were sent, as foreign missionaries. The conclusion is that we are sacrificing to this preventable disease every year as many persons in the prime of life as we are sending as missionaries to other lands. Does this mean anything to you? Are you interested in missions? Then help us stamp out this disease as far as we can among our people. If the young people we are sacrificing to the great white plague each year could be saved from this disease and turned toward the needy fields, we could double our recruits to the ranks of foreign missionaries, and this with no more expense than the disease is causing us.

More than this. Those who are suffering with tuberculosis are a constant care and menace to the health of those who must care for them. Many are in this way becoming infected. How important, then, that we be as well informed as possible as to the cause, prevention, symptoms, course, and treatment of consumption.

The exciting cause of tuberculosis is a germ one ten-thousandth of an inch long and one hundred-thousandth of an inch wide. It must be magnified five hundred diameters in order to be seen. Upon gaining entrance to the body, either through the air or through food, it develops and multiplies very rapidly. When located in some spot, the body endeavors to fence it about by hardening tissue, and this lump is called a tubercle, hence the name. Thousands of these germs may enter the body and be overpowered by it if the resistance or general health is preserved. If, however, for some reason the resistance is lowered, the germs gain the ascendency, and tuberculosis results. The tubercles in the lungs break down, the germs are thrown off through the air, and other persons become infected, hence the great need of prohibiting the habit of expectorating.

The most important thing in preventing tuberculosis, as well as in treating the disease, is to secure conditions most favorable to maintaining vigorous health. Proper food, fresh air, sunshine, and rest are the essentials to health. Tuberculosis depends more upon indirect causes than upon the direct cause, the germ. A healthy body may successfully resist the invasion of the germ, and even combat it when the disease has gotten a foothold; hence the great importance of maintaining the best condition for preserving health when we have it. The old adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” is nowhere more applicable than here. It is much easier to prevent consumption than to cure it. Our first duty then, as well people, is to secure such conditions as will insure a continuation of health. The same treatment that will cure consumption will prevent it.

The symptoms of tuberculosis are not always plain, neither are they constant. Some of the most common are: (1) Gradually failing health, with loss of appetite and weight; (2) slight rise of temperature in the afternoon, from 99° to 101°, with subnormal temperature, as low as 97°, in the early part of the day; (3) this temperature causes what is known as a hectic flush, which manifests itself by a more or less diffused red spot on the cheeks a little above the ordinary location of the rosy cheeks; (4) night sweats occur in quite a large proportion of cases, but this is not constant; (5) cough is present in most pulmonary cases. While it is not best to give too much thought to symptoms, it is well to take an occasional inventory of one’s condition, and if serious signs present themselves, to give attention to these immediately. When these symptoms present themselves for any considerable length of time, one ought to consult a competent physician to ascertain the reason.

We can not here enter into a full discussion of the subject of food. A proper amount of all the elements—fat, protein, and carbohydrates—is necessary. Fats and carbohydrates are especially important, for from these the body derives energy and heat. Fats are derived from cream, butter, nuts, yolks of eggs, olives, olive-oil, cottonseed oil, and animal fats. If in our reform in diet we as a people have erred, it has been in limiting the element of fat in our dietary. In seeking a substitute for flesh meat our food in some instances has been lacking in this essential. More wholesome fats may be obtained from olives, olive-oil, cottonseed oil, nuts, and cream than from flesh foods. It is hoped that these suggestions concerning diet food, will not cause any to go to another extreme in this respect.

Protein, the element of food obtained from lean meat, beans, peas, lentils, curd of milk, white of eggs, and nuts, is an essential part of food, but this element is so well distributed through all foodstuffs that there is little danger of an under supply. Even bread has the proper proportion necessary for body needs. Flesh meat, the ordinary source of protein, is not essential, even in tuberculosis, unless it be in a case where there is no appetite for anything else. One fertile source of tuberculosis is diseased meats, and milk from diseased animals. Any animal products should be thoroughly sterilized by heat before being used as food. It is likely that a very large percentage of deaths in children results from the use of tuberculous milk. Wherever this product is used, it should be either Pasteurized, which means heating for from thirty minutes to an hour at from 140° to 160° F., or brought to the boiling-