Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1890 — PREY TO CONSUMPTION. [ARTICLE]

PREY TO CONSUMPTION.

The Ranks of Medicine Fighting the /" Disease. Philadelphia Record. The establishing of a new hospital in Philadelphia at which consumptives will be treated, and that disease studied thoroughly in all its phases and details, has awakened interest not only among physicians but the public at large. It is natural that a great interest should be taken in the matter when the fact is considered that consumption probably causes more deaths in Philadelphia within a year than any other disease. Even at this season, when cholera infantum mows down little children by the hundreds, consumption of the lungs comes second on the list of mortality, with about sixty death to its credit. OVER ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND A YEAR. Well-grounded medical statisticians claim that nearly one-eighth of all the race dies of consumption. This figure holds good in the United States as well as in other countries. The census estimate of the number of deaths in the country in 1880 was 756 ( 898. Then the population was 50,000,000. To-day it is about 65,000,000. The mortality list will, therefore, foot up to almost 1,000,000 this year. If consumption kills one-eighth of them it will cause the death of 125,000 in the United States during 1890. These figures are enough to startle physicians into a more thorough investigation of the causes and remedies of the fatal disease. Never before has there been so much attention given by the medical profession, not in this country alone, but in England, Germany, France and Italy, to the study of consumption as has been devoted to it during the past year or two. The awakening appears to be universal. ITS TERRORS DECREASING. But, notwithstanding the fearfully large number of people who annually succumb to this disease, there are those, and they stand high in popular and professional estimation, who maintain that consumption is on the decrease; that it does not kill any more people in England now than a century ago, although the population has increased many millions; that more people who take it recover than was the case formerly; that those who do now die lived longer after contracting the disease than did those who died a hundred years ago. SLIGHTLY CONTAGIOUS. Dr. Charles W. Dulles, of West Philadelphia, is one of those who claim that consumption is on the decrease, because medical men know more about the disease than they did years ago. Speaking on this subject he said: • •! don’t think consumption is dying out, but it is certainly decreasing. More cases are cured now than ever before. The hospitals for the special treatment of the disease have much to do with this. It is otten callod incurable, but there are very many cases cured to-day. I think this disease can be prevented by disinfectants to a certain extent. It is the generally accepted opinion now that consumption is slightly contagious. This is a com-mon-sense view of it, at least. “The treatment is simpler nOw than formerly. Judicious exercise, good air and proper diet are the main things now relied upon by the physk cians. Physicians all over the world are studying the disease to-day as they have never before studied it,” Spraying the lungs, or inhaling gasses, has long been used in this country for a remedy. The consumptive bacilli are perishable, but the whole difficulty lies in getting at them with an antidote. One of these spaying apparatuses succeeds in effecting a complete separation of the desired active medicinal poison from theiiquid in which it js incorporated. The spray is exceedingly fine and dry, but carries with it all the antiseptic needed. “The other apparatus is one which sends air heated to nearly or quite 200 degrees centigrade into the lungs. The bacilli are destroyed when they come in contact with this hot air.