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more punctual when the question of getting additional food coupons
arose.
As regards Institutional treatment, it is easier to get men to avail
themselves of it than women. The women will not leave their families if
they can help it, which is unfortunate because coming in closer daily
contact with the children than their husbands do they are more likely to
prove a source of infection.
The men, however, frequently do not stay their allotted time at an
Institution so readily as the women, but finding the restrictions more
irksome discharge themselves before their period has expired, for trivial
and frequently invented excuses. The women settle down more contentedly
and rarely discharge themselves unless for some good and valid
reason.
There is still a tendency among the public to consider Sanatorium
treatment as merely a question of fresh air, and to think they can derive
equal benefit from a visit to relatives in the country without considering
the fact that while in a Sanatorium they are under the care of doctors
who have made a special study of the disease from which they suffer,
while living under the best possible conditions.
The After-Care Committee has done much further useful work and
meets fortnightly to consider cases needing their assistance. Considerable
difficulty is found in obtaining suitable employment for consumptives
who are rarely fit for any continuous or prolonged exertion, and it is
found that country work and farm work is generally more than they can
manage. The monotony of country life to those to whom much that it
holds is meaningless, the want of interests in common with the other
villagers, and the lack of congenial companionship drives them back to
the towns.
There is already plenty of tuberculosis in the country districts, and
the mere change from town to country air without any improvement in
other respects is not going to effect a cure nor prevent the spread of
infection.
The task of finding suitable employment for tuberculous Soldiers is
by no means an easy one, but the Labour Bureau, the Care Committee,
and the Pensions Board have been able to find work for a good many.
The openings suitable for such cases is so limited and their lack of
energy, muscular power, and endurance is so marked that they are