DEPARTMENT HEALTH BULLETIN VOL. I. OCTOBER, 1908 No. 4 Consumption or Tuberculosis This circular is addressed to the people of Virginia. It is intended to convey to them information as to the elementary facts regarding a disease that every year kills about five thousand of the citizens of the State. It is the first step in the campaign against tuberculosis to be waged by the State Department of Health. PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. The work against consumption in Virginia is to be prosecuted as rapidly and as vigorously as possible. The campaign is solely for the good of the people. As far as possible, and as promptly as possible the State must be rid of this scourge. The following are the ends to be sought: First. The education of each individual citizen of the State as to the truth about consumption, beginning with the school child, and reaching all the people. Second. Co-operation with existing Anti-tuberculosis Associations in the State and the extension of this work until every county, town, and city shall have an active Anti-tuberculosis Association to carry on the work in detail in its community. Third.-Legislation by every city, county, and town to provide means to help the consumptive poor and to secure the isolation of those who cannot be educated to use proper means of preven tion. Fourth.-The, establishment of State sanatoria sufficient in size and number to treat all early cases, the actual cost of the treatment to be paid by the patients or by the communities from which they come. Entered as second-class matter July 28, 1908, at the post-office at Richmond, Virginia, For many years consumption or tuberculosis was believed to be inherited. The children of consumptive parents often had the disease, and it was thought that it was transmitted directly from parent to child. Not until 1882 was the real cause of the disease discovered. Scientists had learned by that time that some diseases are caused by minute plants, or germs, so small that they have to be magnified many hundred times to be seen at all. In that year, Robert Koch, a German, found that in consumption a special kind of germ was always found, that it was never found in any other disease, and that if this germ were inoculated into other animals they would develop consumption. This germ has since been proved over and over again to be the cause of consumption. It is called the "germ of consumption" or the "bacillus of tuberculosis." A well person may breathe these small germs into the lungs, where they grow and multiply like any other plant, in suitable soil. As they grow, they make a poison that causes the parts of the lungs about them to become hardened into little nodules or tubercles and then to soften and to break down. The lungs are thus rapidly destroyed and the patient presents the familiar picture of consumption. The germs of consumption can grow in any part of the body: hip disease in children, hump-back, scrofula, and white swelling, are some of the common forms of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis of the lungs is known as consumption. Not every one that breathes in the germs develops the disease. Every adult has probably at some time been infected with them. When one's system is in normal healthy condition, the germs have only a slight chance of living and multiplying; but when the system is weakened by excesses, by improper living, or by other disease, they will probably thrive well. Even a well, strong person may not be able to resist the germs if they are taken into the lungs in large numbers, or very frequently. HOW THE DISEASE IS SPREAD. When the lungs are attacked by the germs of consumption, the softened parts are coughed up. If one examines the expectoration of a consumptive, one can often find millions of the minute germs |