712 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 



reached the open stage — and this certainly can be done — we might 

 treat persons afflicted and cure them without its being necessary 

 for them to stay away from their work for a single day. Those of 

 you who have tried the treatment of tuberculosis by means of the 

 various tuberculin methods will bear me out in this statement. 



The whole question of the dissemination of the human kind of 

 tuberculosis could be settled at once if we only had the chance of 

 testing and treating people before their illness had gone too far. 



Here we have in our State a society," The National Association 

 for the Prevention and Cure of Consumption." We are willing to 

 assist the State in this vital question, to educate the people, to help 

 and to treat these unfortunates who are either already infected or 

 who may be specially predisposed to tubercular troubles. I under- 

 stand several letters have been written to the Government to give 

 us an interview to explain what we are willing to do. So far the only 

 satisfaction we have got is that our request will receive attention. 



I suppose about £2000 a year would enable us to make a start. 

 In America they are spending many hundreds of thousands of 

 pounds a year for the same purpose. Considering that in 1908 in 

 New South Wales 1276 people died from tuberculosis (I do not con- 

 sider the large number of people, who, suffering from tuberculosis, 

 may be incapacitated for years), and taking the value of each life 

 as worth about £200 to the State, we have the enormous amount of 

 £255,200 for one year only. £255,200 ! and we cannot raise £2000. 

 We talk about immigi"ation : let us keep our own people alive first. 

 What I have just stated will also explain why so very little has been 

 heard of this new society lately. 



In speaking on this subject, " The Dissemination of Tuber- 

 culosis," it is not a question of what one can say (the subject is so 

 large), but when to stop, and I trust that these few remarks may 

 be of some slight value in this important discussion. 



Dr. F. S. W. Zlotkowski, Royal Alexandra Hospital for 

 Children, said :■ — 



In any discussion on the dissemination of tuberculosis, it seems 

 necessary to speak not only of the means by which the disease 

 may be spread, but also, and more important still, the means by 

 which dissemination may be prevented. 



Despite differences of opinion we all know the main channels 

 through which the tubercular bacilli are discharged, and although 

 quite well aware of how the disease is conveyed we are more or 

 less content to allow the matter there to remain. Again and again 

 efforts have been made by small bodies of men interested in the 

 cause to carry out a campaign against the disease, and again and 

 again those efforts have failed, not through want of energy or of 

 knowledge on the part of those in charge of the movement, but 

 from lack of practical sympathy from the ruling powers for the 



