p. 9 | Tuberculosis Scare

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 11, 1903

Tuberculosis Scare.

—F. M. Pottenger, Ph. M., M.D., President of the Southern California Anti Tuberculosis League, in the California State Journal of Medicine, for January, declares that phthisiophobia (or “consumption-madness”) freely rendered in the vernacular of common folk, is spreading, and he urges the medical profession to set the people right on the matter. He avers that while there is danger, “the general public is becoming needlessly alarmed, and is magnifying the danger of infection.” He declares that a State hospital for the care of tuberculosis patients, as contemplated by a bill before the Senate, is “inadequate and unnecessary,” and from a humanitarian standpoint, “it is unjust and cruel.” He tells us that to attempt to shut out of the State such patients “is certainly impractical.” He further informs us that “tuberculosis is not a contagious disease in the sense in which we use that term, but a communicable disease. You may come in contact with a patient who is expectorating bacilli by the million daily, yet, if he is careful to destroy the sputum, there is no danger. The danger from this disease comes from ignorance and carelessness; it can be avoided by education and care.” “During the past twenty years there have been treated in the Brompton Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, in London, more than fifteen thousand cases of tuberculosis; and yet neither a nurse nor an attendant has been infected. The same record has been made in Falkenstein, Germany; the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, and the Winyah, at Asheville.” Surely this clearly shows that if intelligent care is taken on the part of patient and nurse there is little danger. The true way to escape it is to keep the normal vitality above germ life, keep clean, live in pure air and sunshine. This experienced physician says many excellent things. Will legislators heed them, or go “at the matter blindly,” as he intimates they are doing?