Tuberculosis and Consumption in Relation to Public Health

Tuberculosis in its various forms is the commonest of all the important diseases of civilised lands. It accounts for some 50,000 deaths a year in England and Wales ; that ls to say, about one death in every ten is due to tuberculosis. The popular idea is that a young adult who develops pulmonary consumption has of necessity recently been infected by a relative, a companion, or a fellow-workman, just as happens in the case of scarlet fever, and much of the machinery in connection with " Sanatorium Benefit " seems to be frankly based on this assumption. In considering the question of prevention it must be remembered that in the majority of civilised communities tuberculosis is as widely distributed and as constantly prevalent as the " common cold." Despite the fact that the newborn infant is practically always free from infection , hardly anyone who has attained the age of 14 has escaped. Distinction between Tuberculisation and Consumption.? The distinguishing peculiarity about childhood infection is that as a general rule between the ages of 3 and 12 it does not manifest itself as consumption of the lungs, but may consist in a comparatively trivial affection of certain glands, prone to heal without further trouble, or in other cases may lead to more serious bone or joint or abdominal trouble, still curable if properly and early taken in hand-These non-pulmonary forms of tuberculosis, though they may prove fatal, are far less so than either the acute forms of generalised tuberculosis, which are terribly fatal during the first two years of life, or than the chronic pulmonary forms (consumption) which after the age of puberty cause most of the deaths from tuberculosis.