The Battle Between Man and Tuberculosis

The era of the battle between man and tuberculosis is ancient indeed, and the war between them is still a fierce, seesawing struggle; yet we hope that final victory will take man's side—indeed we are all but confident that he will come out of the battle triumphant, his banner flying...

The struggle between them has been, and remains, violent and exhausting; but it did not take on an organized, fruitful, scientific form until the great German man of science discovered the tuberculosis germ in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-two. Yes, from that time—from that discovery so far-reaching in its effect on the field of medicine and science—serious resistance to tuberculosis began, and the mounting of fierce campaigns to cut off its line and root it out of the human family was set on foot..

And if medicine has not yet reached its goal, despite the mighty researches that proceed without interruption, that is because this dreadful enemy—strong of temper, hard to handle—has slipped into our various ranks and seeped into the very heart of our society; so that overcoming it, matters standing thus, cannot be accomplished by one particular class of the nation, but requires close, joint cooperation among all classes, and demands that the different forces in the social body join hands. However that may be, the signs of victory—despite the mounting difficulties and the ruggedness of the paths—are a present reality worthy to encourage us and to whet our resolve.

He was right who called tuberculosis the White Plague, before its germ was discovered and its obscurities understood; for it used to come in terrifying shapes, sweeping away thousands, planting terror in hearts and undermining the edifice of civilizations.

Nor would we, in our present age, be witnessing the first signs of triumph in our contest with this deadly disease had not—through the effectiveness of our modern civilization—the level of nutrition risen, the standard of living improved, and concern for matters of health, public and private, become one of the pillars of civilization and social progress.

It has become clear from the precise scientific statistics carried out in several countries, such as the United States and others, that the death rate from tuberculosis decreased from the year nineteen hundred to the year nineteen hundred and forty—that is, within forty years—by nearly seventy-five percent.

It is worth mentioning that the fight against tuberculosis, and deep study of its problems, was the first impulse toward cooperation between the public and medicine in the field of public health. And it was the first occasion on which science demonstrated that it could overcome diseases not by vaccination and isolation alone, but also by way of comprehensive enlightenment, through spreading knowledge among the different classes of the people. The more learning is made general and culture strengthened, the more fruitful are medicine's benefits and the more general its results.

There is no doubt that work against one disease leads, at times, to the discovery of other diseases—which stirs in us enthusiasm and energy, and makes us feel the exhilaration of the sincere fighter whose endeavors are crowned with victory. Likewise the health measures we employ to root out one disease, or to halt its spread and diffusion, open the way for us at the same time to fortify ourselves against several diseases. Our attention, for example, to the cleanliness of water, vegetables, and fruit, to ward off the typhoid fevers, serves us also in avoiding the dysenteric diseases, in preventing the breeding of intestinal worms of all their kinds, and in protecting us from the danger of the deadly epidemics that reach us by way of food and drink, such as yellow fever, cholera, and other ills besides.

Medical research and experiment are in constant expansion and continuous unfolding, and the valuable discoveries are nothing but the fruit of that research and experiment. Thus the discovery of the vaccine, or protective serum, against infection by certain diseases has strengthened the hope that other sera can be prepared to protect against all manner of infections. And we have witnessed the great forward development that has taken place in recent years: the epidemics that in the past wrought terrible slaughter among men, effacing the landmarks of civilizations and disfiguring the fields of building, art, and progress, have dwindled—indeed have all but died out and vanished—and the credit for that goes to the successive efforts exerted by the masters of medicine and science, aiming at the good of all humanity by raising the level of health, private and public.

In America, for example, the disease of diphtheria has almost become a thing of the past, and the two diseases typhoid and malaria have become rarities there. Nor is this to be wondered at in the United States, whose people are distinguished by alertness, learning, and concern for health. In our present age we see that tuberculosis stands foremost among the social health problems at which the heart of the whole world trembles—especially after this grinding war which, like most wars, led to the formation of the conditions that prepare the seeds of this disease to grow.

The civilized world today is trying its utmost to put an end to this social calamity: its scientists devote themselves wholly to carrying out experiments, studies, and precise statistics, in the hope of arriving at a complete grasp of its causes, so that they may be enabled to confront it and prevent its spread.

We may read or hear, from time to time, that effective remedies have been prepared for the cure of this disease. The truth is that medicine has not to this day succeeded in devising a precious drug on which one can rely and from which the hoped-for cure may be expected. To triumph over this White Plague we have but one means: to detect it the moment it arises and to pursue it by technical methods—that is, to hasten to prompt diagnosis and speedy treatment. This is the great and only weapon to which we can resort so far, and its importance lies not merely in that it checks the advance of this disease, but in that it reaches to uprooting it finally from the human race.

And this disease of tuberculosis, like other epidemics, has its flarings and its lulls, its flood and its ebb, its shrinking and its spreading... and the extent of these manifestations depends on the nature of the circumstances that come over society and over individuals. Long wars, which bring privation upon people, are—beyond dispute—among the chief causes of its taking root and flaring up. The proofs of that are plain: the problem of tuberculosis during the First World War and after it was among the most tangled problems and the bitterest calamities that faced the civilized world. In the year nineteen hundred and seventeen, the commanders of the French army returned one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers stricken with tuberculosis to civilian life. And how many thousands of prisoners returned to their countries stricken with this grievous disease! All the European peoples—belligerent and neutral alike—knew the extent of the great increase in tubercular deaths after the First World War... And history repeated itself in the Second World War, under whose burdens we still groan.

In the nations overrun by German oppression, tuberculosis spread among the inhabitants on the widest scale; and the cause of it was nothing but privation, fatigue, misery, and the crowding together in camps and prisons lacking many of the means of health—or rather deprived of them all.

"In the coming issue: Our stand toward this disease"