Medicine: Tuberculosis

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Tuberculosis antagonists last week at last had something to say more audible than the claims of the cancer, heart disease, pneumonia and even leprosy people. If their demands for public attention and support have made the undiscerning U. S. suppose that tuberculosis was diminishing in this country, they last week, through the National Tuberculosis Association averred that it has been increasing in at least the larger cities. Thirty-eight cities last year recorded 24,471 deaths, 430 more than in 1927. One softening of the picture was that those same cities increased their populations during 1928. So the death rate for 1928 was the same as for 1927, namely 87.4 per 100,000.

Eight years ago Dr. Francis Marion Pottenger wrote a book, Tuberculosis and How to Combat it, upon the solicitation of patients at his Monrovia, Calif., sanatorium.* His philosophy of treating the disease for 28 years has included psychology with therapeutics. He lectures to his patients, explains to them the various ways that tuberculosis affects various people and their organs, why certain treatments are used, the ways of preventing the spread of infection. By answering all questions and avoiding obscurantism he has kept his patients from worry, that great handicap against treatment. His book, in which he organized his lectures, has been in wide demand. Last autumn he revised it and recently C. V. Mosby of St. Louis published the second edition (price $2).