Candidates for Tuberculosis
By H. J. Achard, M. D.
ESPINA Y CAPO declared before the Paris congress on tuberculosis, in 1905, that alcoholism and tuberculosis form the worst possible combination; that every alcoholic is a candidate for tuberculosis. Reynier has been struck by the observation that in external tuberculosis occurring after the fortieth year of life, the abuse of alcohol is frequently the only predisposing factor which can be ascertained, and that in such cases, all history of family taint is generally absent. Crothers quite recently demonstrated, in a study of one hundred cases of alcoholism, that it lowers the vitality and resistance, and predisposes to consumption; and Cornet explains the favoring influence of alcohol on the development of pulmonary phthisis thus, — that the ciliated epithelial cells are, by alcohol, temporarily weakened and paralyzed, so that one important defensive provision against the inhalation of tubercle bacilli is rendered inactive. Another harmful consequence he sees in the weakening of the heart muscle. The general conviction thus prevails that alcoholism is distinctly a predisposing factor for the acquirement of tuberculosis, by virtue of its enfeebling, paralyzing effect on the defensive apparatus of the organism and the general systemic resistance to infectious diseases. — H. J. Achard, M. D. SEVENTY-FIVE insurance companies carried on an investigation running back through fifty years, and reached the conclusion that the man who takes two beers or one whisky a day increases his death risk eighteen per cent.