In 1903, the first visiting tuberculosis nurse was assigned in Baltimore to follow up patients of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Out-patient Department. Her duties were varied as are the duties of the present day tuberculosis nurse. She was to instruct patients in the use of sunlight and fresh air and was allowed to furnish them with special diet in the shape of milk and eggs. She investigated home conditions and helped improve sleeping quarters. She placed patients in sanatoria, or brought them back to the dispensary for treatment. She gave bedside care to advanced cases, if she could not get them into hospitals, and applied to relief organizations for help in solving the problems of the family. From time to time other nurses of the Baltimore Visiting Nurse Association were assigned to the work, other dispensaries and agencies began referring cases to be followed up, and the work grew to such proportions as to be almost unmanageable for a private organization. In 1910, the Tuberculosis Division of the Baltimore Health Department was organized. It began its activities with a corps of fifteen nurses and a visiting list of 1,617 patients turned over to it by the Baltimore Visiting Nurse Association. The object of the Tuberculosis Division was to bring under the supervision of the Health Department all persons in the city suffering with pulmonary tuberculosis. Ambulatory cases were to be given advice and instruction; advanced cases, bedside care, if needed, or hospital care, if available. At present, it is upon the advanced cases, as well as those who are in contact with them, that the nurses of the Tuberculosis Division concentrate their efforts. The Staff at present consists of a Superintendent and sixteen Field Nurses. The city is divided into sixteen districts, a nurse being assigned to each district. Each nurse is responsible for the care of all cases of tuberculosis in her district. In 1912, the Tuberculosis Division opened two municipal tuberculosis dispensaries. These dispensaries receive patients on alternate days from 3 to 5 p. m., nurses in districts nearest the dispensaries alternating for clinic duty. Other dispensaries are the Phipps Tuberculosis Dispensary at Johns Hopkins' Hospital, and the University of Maryland Hospital Tuberculosis Dispensary. The problems which chiefly concern the Tuberculosis Division in its efforts to control the spread of tuberculosis in Baltimore are the failure of physicians to report cases to the Department of Health until the patient is in a dying condition, and the inadequate provision for hospital care of advanced cases. These conditions are particularly marked in the case of colored patients, who are found going in and out of homes, restaurants, and laundries, as cooks, waitresses and servants of various kinds, as long as they are able to drag themselves about.