The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 1000, February 25, 1899Various
General
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 1000, February 25, 1899
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
ANXIOUS MOTHER.—The question of the causation of tuberculosis by milk
is the most important question in modern preventive medicine; for not
only is tuberculosis the most common and most fatal disease of man,
but milk is the staple food of infancy and sickness—the two states
in which we are most prone to harbour germs of this terrible malady.
To the public mind tuberculosis is synonymous with consumption of
the lungs, but this is only one of its manifestations. Brain fever
(tuberculosis of the brain) is a common and invariably fatal disease.
The joint troubles known as “white swelling,” “hip disease,” and
very many others are due to tuberculosis. The so-called “scrofulous”
glands, which disfigure and undermine the health of so many of our
children, are due to tuberculosis. The worst and most fatal form of
diarrhœa is due to tuberculosis of the bowels. No organ in the body
is exempt from the ravages of this disease. We look with righteous
horror at the plague, or the various fevers which occasionally decimate
our towns and villages, but these are as nothing when compared with
the ravages of tuberculosis. Unlike the fevers which destroy life in
a few days, tuberculosis usually takes months, often years, to kill
its victims. Slowly, but surely, this terrible malady eats away the
human organs till the unfortunate sufferers die of exhaustion, or from
an intercurrent malady. To say that medical science can always cure
tuberculosis would be very far from the truth, but it can and does
rescue millions of sufferers from the disease. And it can, and in the
future it will, do much to prevent the disease from gaining an entrance
to the body. The disease is caused by a microbe, an infinitesimal atom
of jelly, which cannot even move; but it can, and does, multiply by
splitting in two, at an incredible rate. As regards the prevention
of this scourge, the first question we must consider is, where does
this dreadful organism come from? Suffice it for your question that
the organism is frequently found in milk. True, it is only in the
milk of tubercular animals that these organisms are found, but it is
not always possible to tell whether a cow has tuberculosis. And so,
notwithstanding every precaution, tubercular milk does get into your
milk-jug and that can scarcely be prevented; but you can prevent the
organisms from finding their way into you or your child’s body by
the simple expedient of boiling the milk. If you boil milk it cannot
give you tuberculosis. Now, we dare say you think that we might have
said this at once, and not wasted half a column of valuable space in
detailing the horrors of tuberculosis. Had we done this you would
probably not have paid any attention to our warning. It is only by
forcible illustration that we can impress the mind with the immense
value of attention to trifling details. And the importance of this
detail may be gauged when we aver that a law to enforce persons boiling
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