A SANATORIUM! FOR THE TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION. 805 
4.— A SANATORIUM FOR THE TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION 
IN QUEENSLAND. 
By EUGEN HIBSCHFELD , AT, /). , Hon. Bacteriologist to the Brisbane Hospital 
It has been first shown by Dr. Brehmer, of Goerbersdorf, in 
Prussia, that a great number of patients suffering from consumption 
in its early stages can be cured if they are placed under favourable 
conditions, while in many cases by appropriate treatment life can be 
prolonged with a “ fair share of capacity for work and for enjoyment.” 
When we consider how great the number of patients is who are 
suffering from phthisis, it is strauge indeed that the subject has 
received comparatively but little attention. Of course, it is absurd to 
expect that full health will be restored in those cases in which great 
portions of one or both lungs have been destroyed by the progress of 
the disease. To stop a further encroachment on the still healthy 
parts of the lung is all that we can hope for in those patients. But 
the prognosis would have been very much more favourable if the 
patient had come earlier under suitable treatment. 
The conditions necessary for a successful treatment of consump- 
tion are — 
1. Early diagnosis. 
2. Early treatment. 
3. Treatment in sanatoria specially set apart for consumptive 
patients. 
The first two conditions I need hardly further dilate upon. The 
smaller the portion of the lung affected by phthisis, the more 
favourable the prognosis. The treatment of consumption in a special 
sanatorium in Queensland forms the subject of this paper. 
There can be very little doubt about the experience that general 
hospitals, as a rule, are quite unsuitable for the reception of consumptive 
patients ; in the first instance, on account of the risk of infection with 
tuberculosis to which the other patients of the same institution are 
exposed, more particularly when they are convalescent from other 
debilitating diseases, which have left them in a condition specially pre- 
disposed to contract consumption. Quite apart from this consideration, 
the depressing influence of surroundings in a hospital on patients who 
are suffering from a disease which, as a rule, does not render the 
confinement to bed necessary, the lack of home comforts, the enforced 
idleness, which gives the patient plenty of opportunity to meditate and 
brood over his disease, the general, I need not say unfounded, dislike 
and distrust of hospitals amongst the public ; all these aspects, though 
insignificant, perhaps, when taken singly, become of serious importance 
in a disease the successful treatment of which is only achieved by the 
observance of details. We all know how great attention has to be paid 
to the proper feeding of the consumptive patient. The plain food and 
plain cooking are eminently suitable for the majority of the inmates 
of a general hospital, but the delicate stomach and capricious appetite 
of a phthisical patient have to be reckoned with if we want to see him 
put on flesh. Moreover, the quantity of food required would present 
financial difficulties. The expenditure for milk and eggs, for instance, 
would form a very big item. Fruit is another article which might be 
objected to by the committee if it were introduced into the general 
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