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Phthisis or Consumption.
This disease has recently been brought before the public in
many ways.
Scientific men of the present day have declared that Consumption
is a preventible disease, and the means to prevent
it spreading cannot be too widely circulated.
The returns from the Registrar General state that nearly
60,000 deaths occur in England and Wales every year from this
disease. I find that, in this district during the last 10 years,
over 1,800 persons have died from it ; these facts are sufficient
to make every individual member of the community pause to
consider if he cannot do something towards its prevention.
This æsease is a contagious one and should be treated as such.
The principal means by which it is conveyed to a healthy
person is the expectoration from consumptive patients which contains
enormous numbers of the tubercular bacilli, which on drying
become suspended in the atmosphere, and so are inhaled.
Another way is by means of the consumption of milk from
cows infected with Tubercular disease.
This disease is much more common in cows than people
imagine, and in order to guard against it, milk should be boiled
or sterilized, especially that given to young children.
Another method—a minor one compared to the other two—is
by eating meat from diseased cattle, but fortunately the cooking
of meat practically destroys the bacillus.
With regard to the first means—the expectoration from
diseased persons—I feel sure that it cannot be too widely known