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109
Treatment of Tuberculosis with special reference
to the Dispensary.
The treatment of Consumption has passed through many
varied phases and fashions during the last few centuries, and
the history of this fascinating subject, is, to a large extent, the
history of Medicine itself. The disease has been recognised
from the time of Hippocrates, and medical writers in every
period make some reference or other to this dread malady,
which is now, however, thanks to the disciples of Medicine,
losing some of its terrors, even to affected persons.
The contagious character of Phthisis, the form of tuberculous
disease which is responsible alone for so many deaths
every year in these islands, has also been recognised for many
centuries, but it is only within modern times that a real conception
of the manner of the propagation of the disease and
means for the prevention of the same, have been obtained.
There is no doubt that all observers, even those who
believe in the theory of hereditary transmission, agree that
sputum containing tubercle bacilli and emanating from the
so-called open cases of Consumption, is capable of immense
possibilities in the way of causing infection of persons brought
within the immediate neighbourhood, to say nothing of patients
reinoculating themselves by swallowing their expectoration.
Let us for a moment consider what can be seen any day
at one of our up-to-date anti-tuberculosis dispensaries, namely,
the variety of forms in which the bacillus tuberculosis manifests
itself as a parasite of the human race, then we can realise that
one method of attack against this scourge is comparatively
impotent. Happily there are many agencies which may be
employed, all useful in their way, to combat this disease, and it
is the object of this article to put before the reader, in as
concise and clear a manner as possible, the present position of