Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1920 — NO LONGER DEATH SENTENCE [ARTICLE]

NO LONGER DEATH SENTENCE

Science Today Can Overcome "White Plague,” as Holmes Called Dreaded Tuberculosis. “The white plague,” a term known in all languages and all countries to designate tuberculosis, was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and first used tn 1861, when the poet and humorist, who was also a physician, issued his medical novel, “Elsie Venner.” Holmes described the experiences encountered by a country doctor in the course of his trips with his pony, and spoke in one passage of “the dead winter, when the white plague of the north has -caged its wasted victims, shuddering as they think of the frozen soil which must be quarried rock to receive-them.” __ The comparatively recent origin of the term emphasizes the fact that the campaign against tuberculosis is of quite recent origin, says a statement of the Michigan Antl-Tu-berculosis association. In the day of Holmes tuberculosis was still equivalent to a death sentence. Little was known about the disease, and when a person once was qffllcted with it he was given that. Now the knowledge of treating the disease has Increased so much that a large percentage of cases recover, and when discovered early enough practically all recover.