Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/481

Rh we had special hospitals for consumptives, and if the patients were taken care of there for nothing, or at least at a very moderate rate. To such hospitals they would willingly go; they could be better treated and fed there than is now the case. I know very well that the execution of the project will have great difficulties to contend with, owing to the considerable outlay it entails. But very much would be gained if, at least in the existing hospitals, which have to admit a great number of consumptives at any rate, special wards were established for them in which pecuniary facilities would be offered them. If only a considerable fraction of the whole number of consumptives were suitably lodged in this way a diminution of infection, and consequently of the sum-total of tuberculosis, could not fail to be the result. Permit me to remind you in this connection of what I said about leprosy. In the combating of that disease also great progress has already been made by lodging only a fair number of the patients in hospitals. The only country that possesses a considerable number of special hospitals for tuberculous patients is England, and there can be no doubt that the diminution of tuberculosis in England, which is much greater than in any other country, is greatly due to this circumstance. I should point to the founding of special hospitals for consumptives and the better utilization of the already existing hospitals for the lodging of consumptives as the most important measure in the combating of tuberculosis, and its execution opens a wide field of activity to the State, to municipalities, and to private benevolence. There are many people who possess great wealth and would willingly give of their superfluity for the benefit of their poor and heavily afflicted fellow-creatures, but do not know how to do this in a judicious manner. Here is an opportunity for them to render a real and lasting service by founding consumption hospitals or purchasing the right to have a certain number of consumptive patients maintained in special wards of other hospitals free of expense.

As, however, unfortunately, the aid of the State, the municipalities, and rich benefactors will probably not be forthcoming for a long time yet, we must for the present resort to other measures that may pave the way for the main measure just referred to and serve as a supplement and temporary substitute for it. Among such measures I regard obligatory notification as specially valuable. In the combating of all infectious diseases it has proved indispensable as a means of obtaining certain knowledge as to their state, especially their dissemination, their increase, and their decrease. In the conflict with tuberculosis also we cannot dispense with obligatory notification; we need it not only in order to inform ourselves as to the dissemination of this disease, but mainly in order to learn where help and instruction can be given, and especially where the disinfection which is so urgently