[...]
Prison All over this broad land of ours, a bit of war is
being fought against tuberculosis.
Able warriors armed with modern weapons are on the firing line.
How goes the battle? Come with me on a journey and let's see what is being done.
Prison First to Washington to get a few facts.
In this building is the Census Bureau where Uncle Sam
keeps his health record books.
There is a card here for each of us, telling when we were born, when married,
what we die of and many other facts.
Ingenious machines sort these cards so that statistics may be compiled from them.
Imagine all the people in the United States divided into groups of 100,000 each.
Here is one such group.
This Christian man represents 50 deaths from tuberculosis.
In 1910 there were about 150 deaths from tuberculosis for
each 100,000 persons.
We need three urns in this row.
Ten years later there were 100 deaths per 100,000 persons, two urns.
And in 1935 about 50, only one urn.
Death rate cut to one third of what it was 25 years ago.
What a retreat.
Next we visit New York City where so much of the nation's business is transacted.
In New York the headquarters of the National Tuberculosis Association.
Its network of state, county and city associations covers the country, including
our territories and possessions.
The whole enterprise is financed by the sale of tuberculosis Christmas seals
which you buy each year.
Renowned artists create a new design for the seal each year.
Here is Rockville Kent at Work on One.
The local tuberculosis associations send them out to you and me.
In some places the scouts or other organizations lend a hand.
Every seal carries a message of hope and cheer.
With the money these associations keep up the fight through education of the
people by the printed word, pamphlets, posters,
the newspaper, exhibits, radio.
Education of the people and through them of the state is the first and greatest
need in the prevention of tuberculosis.
These were the words of Edward Livingston Trudeau, our first president, when in
1905 he charted the course of the National Tuberculosis Association.
Let's go next to Saranac Lake in the beautiful Adirondacks which Dr. Trudeau
loves so well.
Here is the brown statue of
Trudeau reclining in his chair, a pole so characteristic of his own successful
struggle against tuberculosis.
It was Trudeau who introduced the modern treatment of
tuberculosis in this country.
Rest, fresh air and good food.
Nestling in the hills now surrounded by fine buildings, we find the Little Red,
the first cottage built by Trudeau in 1884 for the treatment of two young women.
It has served as the inspiration for the more than 700
sanatoria built since then.
Let's have a look at one of these sanatoria, or tuberculosis
hospitals as they are called today.
Real hospitals for the tuberculosis and not merely resting places.
Here we are in a large southern sanatorium.
This one has beds for 500 patients.
Altogether there are now 90,000 such beds available.
Rest and more rest, as Trudeau discovered when he himself took
the cure as a young doctor.
Yes, and good food.
Nowadays, doctors don't stuff patients with more milk
and eggs than they can suggest.
Just good well-balanced meals, enough to gain weight on.
Mmm, smell those delicious loaves.
New ways of resting the lung have been developed.
This patient is getting pneumothorax treatment.
Air is let into the chest cavity, and that rests the lung so that it can heal.
When the diseased lung is fully healed, it is allowed to expand again,
a lifesaver for many.
Each patient has helped to find his place in the workaday world
when he leaves the sanatorium.
Here's a class in typewriting.
In this sanatorium, as in many others, children of tuberculosis parents who
cannot be properly protected otherwise are cared for in the special
department of the sanatorium.
Finding the cases of tuberculosis is a very important job.
Not only the specialist, but the family doctor too, is constantly on the alert
knowing that tuberculosis may disguise itself as some other disease.
Doctors in the villages and country
districts too keep in mind the dangers of unsuspected disease.
Even when patients do not complain of the common symptoms, such as cough,
tiredness, loss of weight, or indigestion, the alert
doctor thinks of tuberculosis.
Clinics for the diagnosis of tuberculosis now exist in
every enterprising community.
Specialists are in charge and x-ray services at hand.
Public health nurses teach the families of those who have tuberculosis.
They see that the doctor's orders are faithfully carried out.
They urge all members of the family to be examined.
For tuberculosis, though not inherited, runs in families.
What about the thousands of people in out-of-the-way places?
Let's see how they do it in the Bayou country.
Work in the cane fields under the hot sun is picturesque, but mighty hard labor.
These sections are not well equipped with clinics or x-ray apparatus, so
necessary to discover tuberculosis.
Very well, says the health department, if people cannot come to the doctor, the
doctor and all he needs will go to the people.
Here is an auto trailer, expertly designed, which carries complete equipment for
making diagnoses in the modern manner.
A doctor and nurse go with the outfit, and van's arrangements are made with the
doctors and local health departments so that all who should be examined will be
on hand when the trailer comes.
Here we are arriving on the public square, alongside the
courthouse and ready for business.
Quietly and efficiently, the work is carried on by skilled workers.
The family doctor gets the report of the x-ray examination of his patients.
Inside the trailer, everything is snug and shipshape.
It looks compact, doesn't it?
But there's space enough to do the job well.
The dressing room is just a corner, screened off by a curtain.
The x-ray apparatus is one of the latest models, for a poor x
-ray picture may be worse than none.
Efficiency and economy make it possible to give this important
service to the people.
Snap all over.
The plate is removed, later to be developed in the dark room, and in a moment the
next patient will go through the same steps.
Inside the courthouse or sometimes a school or church, the doctor makes the rest
of the examination, gets the history of the patient, and consults with the
local doctor about the patient.
Then, on their way again, to the next town, up and down throughout the state.
This showed you but one of several such diagnostic auto trailers now being
used in rural areas.
Now we are in a large Midwestern university.
We meet the flower of American manhood and womanhood.
How many of them will fall victims due to tuberculosis?
Well, if nobody cares, at least six out of each 1,000 students, before they reach
their 30s.
But someone does care, enough to search out the very beginnings of the disease,
before there are any signs or symptoms.
All students are given this simple tuberculosis test to show whether tuberculosis
germs have entered the body.
All who have tuberculosis germs in their bodies are x-rayed, one
out of four in this university.
Tuberculosis must be seen before it is heard, say the doctors.
That's why they urge all young people to be tested with tuberculosis and to
be x-rayed if positive.
The x-ray plate is developed in the dark room, much as you develop your own
Kodak pictures in the mysterious amber-lighted closet at home.
When the film is dry, the shadows are red or interpreted by the doctor.
Here's the chest picture of a young athlete.
The trained eye of the physician sees the damage already done by tuberculosis.
The fight also goes on in the Quiet Research Laboratory.
Scientists are studying the life and habits of the germ.
Did you know that the tuberculosis germ actually breathes, eats and reproduces?
They are finding out how the germ causes disease and also
how the body defends itself.
Someday, maybe, they'll give us a specific cure.
But don't exalt yet. There is another side to this optimistic picture.
The death rate has gone down, true, but 70,000 tuberculosis victims still march
to their graves each year and many more are disabled.
Most of them are young people in that period of life when it
is most productive and sweet.
Eager students, young parents, wage earners on the upgrade of life.
Not an old man's disease, this, but a bitter foe of youth.
Here they are, the young people we're concerned about.
Out of each 100,000 in the age group 15 to 45, 66
died last year.
There's another sore spot on the optimistic picture.
Certain racial groups, such as Negroes, Mexicans and Indians, suffer
heavy losses from tuberculosis.
The death rate among Negroes is three times as high as among whites.
Not only in the Southland, but also in the northern industrial centers.
Poverty, bad housing and a depressed scale of living seem
to be largely responsible.
Living cheaply really means living expensively.
How would you like to try to keep warm this way?
Buying your firewood at the kerb, 16 sticks for five cents, and when that is
gone, perhaps on some cold night.
Having to pinch pennies for food is another hardship.
Rabbits, two for a quarter.
Here's the chart we saw before, showing the decline
in the death rate among whites.
Each of these strips represents 100,000 Negroes.
And each earn 50 deaths from tuberculosis.
But notice that the decline is of injustice rapid as that among whites.
And in 1935, Negroes suffered no more deaths than whites did in 1910.
There's a lag, but the trend is hopeful.
Another problem, industrial workers.
Did you know that tuberculosis is the particular enemy of the working classes?
The men and women on whom the rest of the prosperity and welfare of this nation?
In this chart, each group represents 10,000 men with a job.
Here are the professional men, here are the white-collar workers, the farmers and
foresters, here are the skilled workers, and finally, the unskilled workers.
Each earn represents one death from tuberculosis among these workers.
Professional men, not many deaths among them.
Clerks, about three times as many.
Agricultural workers seem to fare pretty well.
Skilled workers are little more than clerks.
And unskilled workers, here's our problem.
Look at the urns. 17 out of each 10,000 die of tuberculosis each year.
This time we go west.
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and California.
For here, there is still another problem.
Years ago, it got noised about that climate was a magic cure, that error
is still believed by many.
But out here in the southwest, there are, oh, nobody knows, but perhaps 5,000
persons who have tuberculosis, roaming aimlessly about looking for help.
Some of them come alone, spend their last dollar for railroad fare and cheap
lodging, look in vain for a job and die.
Others bundle up the whole family in the old car and start out blindly, just
hoping to make a new start.
They sell them fine work, eke out a miserable existence, and when the last drop
of gasoline gives out, they become a burden on some hard-pressed community.
Little can be done for them, for they have lost their settlement rights.
They don't stay long enough in one place to win the rights of a resident.
The children suffer neglect and are constantly exposed to the danger of getting
tuberculosis from the sick parents.
They become shrouded in gloom and despair.
Whatever becomes of them, no one seems to know precisely.
Though some excellent studies of this situation allow underway, this problem is
our business, not only because we are our brother's keeper, but also because
every such sick wanderer carries the seeds of tuberculosis along the countryside.
The wandering consumptive is, of course, only part of the larger problem of
migration, which social organizations and government departments are trying
hard to solve.
[...] home again, best part of the journey.
But do you know that we are still on the front line?
For tuberculosis threatens every doorstep, rich, poor and medium-class,
and no home is safe until every home is safe.
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