In an endeavour to give readers the feel of how NJI looked like hundred years ago, we are reproducing
editorial of May 1910 issue. Such excerpts would be published each month.
Although the records of deaths from tuberculosis are still appalling, yet it is a pleasure to
see the progress which is being made in that fight against it all over the world. Feeling
about the disease now is very different from what it was in the old days when it was
thought to be hereditary and incurable. With our present knowledge of the way tuberculosis
is spread we can look forward to a happy time in the future when its extinction will be
accomplished by wise measures of prevention and cure.
Paris has decided to devote 30,000,000 francs (Rs. 1,50,00,000) to be expended on “La
lutte contre tuberculose”, and Germany has numerous sanatoria and isolation homes for
tuberculous patients. In Berlin the Insurance Board spent £ 1,776,600 in the remedial
treatment of workpeople suffering from tuberculosis. England and America are not behind
in this great crusade, and besides institutions for the treatment and study tuberculosis,
most large cities have staffs of nurses who teach such patients how to care for themselves
in their own homes, and how to avoid being source of danger to other members of their
families.
For information about tuberculosis work in India, we addressed during last month the
Chief Medical Officers to the Governments of the eight provinces, the Agencies of
Rajputana and Central India, and the chief Native States. At the time of writing we have
received eleven replies, and the one from Lieut. Col. Shore of Hyderabad, is typical of
them all – “I greatly regret to say that… no special work on tuberculosis is being carried on
in Hyderabad State. There are no Hospitals or Sanatoria devoted to the treatment of this
disease.” And by a strange irony, the only exception is in favour of criminals, as the
Punjab reports special provision for dealing with tuberculosis in certain jails. The
Government of the United Provinces has assisted the London Missionary Society with a
building and a monthly grant for a small sanatorium, and the Inspector-General of Civil
Hospitals for that Province writes : “The necessity for providing suitable accommodation
and proper treatment for consumptive patients is being fully recognized. The question of
making a sanatorium for consumptives somewhere near Almora is under consideration of
Government.”
It is impossible to get a full account of India’s present part in the “World’s War against
Consumption,” because there is so much being done by Civil Surgeons, and other doctors,
nurses and others all over India which never gets into Government reports. This is a matter in
which individual work is of the highest importance, and in this fight every woman in India,
especially every woman of leisure, may have a great, if a quiet and unrecognized share.
We are glad to be able to offer our readers in this number of the Journal the first papers of
two valuable series. Sir Bhalchandra Krishna has kindly prepared an article on
Tuberculosis which will appear in two parts, and Captain MacGilchrist of Lahore Medical
College is giving a series and Lectures on Physiology and Medicine which he recently
delivered to the Probationer Nurses at the Mayo Hospital. Captain G Fowler, IMS, will
contribute an article on Malaria for the June number.
Nursing Journal of India, May 1910, page 70
