45 



TUBEECULOSIS. 



(a) Cause. (b) Mode of Infection. (c) Prevention. 



(1) By the Individual. (2) By the State. 



(Read August 10th, 1896.) 



By Gregory Sprott, M.D., D.P.H., Health Officer for the 



City of Hobart. 



*' In matters of prevention knowledge is power."— Dr. Burdon Sanderson, 

 Harceran oration. 



The subject I propose to deal with to-night is one of 

 interest, not only to the medical and veterinary professions, 

 but to every member of the community. Tuberculosis is one 

 of the most "widespread diseases we bave to deal with, and 

 causes more suffering to humanity than any otlier known 

 disease at the present time. Its ravages are only equalled 

 by those of small pox in the last century. 



Preventive medicine bas of late years done much towards 

 the diminution of what we generally look upon as the 

 infectious diseases, but has it been employed against the 

 spread of tuberculosis in the same meritorious way ? I am 

 bound to tell you it has not, and yet there is no disease that 

 the science of State medicine could be more profitably 

 employed against than that of tuberculosis. It is indeed 

 appalling to see so many of our young men and women cut 

 oif in the prime of man or womanhood. The choicest speci- 

 mens of our race are frequently the first to go, and those who 

 are not doomed to a speedy death are frecjuently chronic 

 invalids, incapacitated for work. 



No apology is therefore necessary for bringing before you 

 a subject which is not only important to the individual, but 

 to the whole of the nations which are so heavily burdened 

 by it. 



Tuberculosis is a specific infectious disease caused by the 

 bacillus tuberculosis of Koch. It is common to man and the 

 lower animals. In the human subject it appears in different 

 foruis — such as phthisis pulmonalis, tabes mesenteric, tuber- 

 cular meningitis, scrofula, lupus, etc., but these are all 

 causally related to the bacillus of Koch. 



In the lower animals it is common to rabbits, guinea^ 

 pigs, monkeys, fowls, etc. In the bo vines it is known as 

 *' Perlsucht," or " Grapes." 



Dr. Crisp stated he had met with it in more than one 

 hundred species of animals, including quadrupeds, birds, and 

 reptiles. Neither the goat nor the donkey are very subject 



