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82
The increased and increasing amount of attention which
is being paid by the general public to the question of Tuberculosis is undoubtedly all for the public good, and the success
which attended the combined Fete held in the Trinity College
grounds by the kind permission of the Drapers' Co. and with
the very able assistance of the Warden, L. Collyer, Esq., to
whom our thanks are due, shews that this interest locally is
being stimilated. The total receipts from this Fete amounted
to over £100, and the actual sales from the stalls produced
for Lewisham £33 5s. 5d., Greenwich £8 1s. 6d., Deptford
£6 11s. 11d., and was in every respect considered to be a very
successful function, and it would be invidious indeed to mention
any particular names for special thanks. The greatest difficulty
in connection with tuberculosis work in my opinion is the
inertia of the higher authorities from the Government downwards.
Professor W. M. Crofton, M.D., Pathologist, University
College, Dublin, in the following extract from a recent paper
of his, indicates the urgency of the problem of immunity from
tuberculosis from the national point of view: —
"Now supposing tuberculosis was a dramatic disease,
quick in its onset and acute in its course as enteric is, and that
it killed in this way twenty thousand people a year, leaving
another large number of people crippled, miserable, and inefficient for the rest of their lives, do you think such a milk
supply would be tolerated for a moment? Tuberculosis is so
sly and so undramatic that it does not excite alarm, but it is
none the less as certain a death dealer or crippler. There can
be no doubt at all about it, this question of a tuberculosis free
milk supply is a most urgent problem and that it would be a
triumph for any government to put the means we have at our
disposal into operation."