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20
Tuberculosis in Childhood.
There is, unfortunately, some chaos in London with respect to the
diagnosis and necessity for treatment of tuberculosis in childhood. 1 he
medical profession is itself much divided on this point.
It is admitted, I think, by almost all medical men that the great majority
of children at the age they leave school are infected with tuberculosis. As
the age of the child increases, the percentage of those infected in each age
group rapidly increases. Various post-mortem investigations and tuberculin
tests have established this fact.
The difficulty and divergence of opinion arise more with regard to
exactly what signs, symptoms, &c., in childhood are an indication of active
disease. There is no uniformity in this respect, and therefore there is lack of
uniformity as to whether special treatment is necessary or desirable.
The past histories of many cases of adult tuberculosis point strongly to
infection in childhood, which has remained dormant until adult life.
It is obviously impossible, and indeed undesirable, to place every infected
child under Sanatorium treatment. Open Air Schools, no doubt, help to
prevent these infected children becoming definite consumptives in later years,
but the solution of this problem rests with improved housing conditions
and a general improvement in the hygienic life of the people. With
the present methods of treatment for tuberculosis at our disposal, there is little
doubt that the disease will never be eradicated so long as we have overcrowding
and poverty in our midst. Tuberculosis produces poverty, poverty
encourages tuberculosis.