Tuberculosis and the Possibility of Recovery
"The Great White Plague."—Such is the name which the late Dr. O. W. Holmes, we believe, applied to tuberculosis. It is truly a dread disease. For instance, in the report of the Sanitary Bureau Health Department, of New York City, on Contagious Diseases, for the week ending July 3, 1897, of the 154 deaths reported, 91 are from tuberculosis. Diphtheria comes second, with 25, and measles third, with 11. Of the 141 deaths reported in the week ending July 24, 97 were from tuberculosis. Diphtheria comes second with 22, and typhoid fever third, with 9. In the week ending July 31, of the 141 deaths, tuberculosis claims 85, diphtheria 21, and measles 10. These statistics, which run so evenly from week to week, we get from that excellent journal, the New York Medical Record. It is said that, the world over, 10,000 human beings die of tuberculosis every twenty-four hours. And yet it is possible so to live as to escape it, or, having it, to recover.