The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

18 The Health Bulletin February, 192"!
free uiion riMiuest by the Extension
Department of tbe Sanatorium.
"There are no cliaracteristic physical
siffH-f in the ehildhood type of tul)erculosis.
In the few children with the
ac.ult tyi>e of the disease there are
found the same physical signs as in the
adult, and even thousrh abnormal physical
chest Jindliijis are usually lackiui;
a careful physical examination may
reveal tulxM-culous cervical glands or
some non-tuberculous condition which
may be causing the symptoms.
"Since tracheo-bronchial tuberculosis
is the most common form of the disease
in children, and since it is accompanied
with no characteristic physical signs
(/ood X-raij films, rightly interpreted,
are of great value in the diagnosis of
childhood tuberculosis. Stereoscopic
antero-posterior films and a single
oblique film should be njade in all
doubtful cases.
"Whenever a case of tuberculosis is
discovered, whether in a child or an
adult, a special effort should be made
to locate the source of the infection.
To this end the physician should insist
on every member of the household being
examined. In this way many early
cases can be discovered before they
become infective and in time to be
cured, and not infrequently tuberculous
adults are discovered who have a positive
sputum and who are broadcasting
tubercle bacilli, but who may not be
conscious of- having the disease.
"For cases who are unable to go to
a private specialist we conduct a diagnostic
clinic here at the Sanatorium."
MEDICINE AND CHEMISTRY
Inseparable Allies In the Scientific World
There is no more inspiring chronicle
in all the annals of history, save the
birth and life of Jesus Christ, than
the life and work of Louis Pasteur.
Pasteur was a chemist and started his
work simply and purely as a chemist,
he became profoundly interested in
some of the seemingly unsolvable problems
of medicine of the middle of the
nineteenth century. He brought to the
field of bacteriology, pathology, biology
and medicine a light that to this day,
in the language of Osier, "Brightens
more and more as the years give us
ever fuller knowledge." Osier quotes
an anonymous writer in the statement
"that he was the most perfect man
who has ever entered the Kingdom of
Science."
Up to the time of Pasteur and his
gi-eat work less than three-quarters of
a century ago, the world knew little
more of the causes of the great pestilential
plagues than the Greeks at the
time the Apostle Paul was preaching
in Athens. Before Pasteur and his
work, so far as absolute, exact, scientific
knowledge existed in the sense we
know it today in the realm of prevention
and cause of disease, men were
groping in the blackness of darkness.
The work of this master chemist, therefore,
stands out in the history of medical
achievement like a message from
Fairyland.
Without his training as a chemist, a
study as perfect and as accurate as
mathematics, it is doubtful if Pasteur
could have succeeded as he did in his
diversion into the field of biology. The
previous discovery of the microscope
had opened up an entirely new world,
the world of minute living things. But
the old belief in spontaneous generation
still prevailed, until the work of
Pasteur forever destroyed that fallacy.
The definite facts concerning the
truth about fermentation and spoittaneous
generation worked, out and
proved by Pasteur represent the basic
foundation, and beginning of modern
surgery and again to quote Osier
"forms now one of the most brilliant
chapters in the history of Preventive
Medicine." Joseph Lister, a young
surgeon of Glasgow, Scotland, was the
first surgeon to grasp the significance
of Pasteur's scientific work as applicable
to surgery and so made an immortal
name for himself. A combination of
brains and courage in chemistry and
surgery that was to save uncountable
millions of human lives.
There could be no more important
course in the high school curriculum
than the study of biography. Aside
from its religious significance and inspiration
one of the things which makes
the Bible the greatest literary work of
all ages, is because it contains the
greatest series of biographies ever assembled.
Joseph and David for example.
To the boy in high school between
the ages of 16 and 18 when his mind
'