An address on our duty to the consumptive breadearner : delivered to the Oxford and District and Reading and Upper Thames Branches of the British Medical Association, June 28th, 1901 / by Sir J. Burdon-Sanderson.

  • Burdon-Sanderson, John Scott, 1828-1905.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An address on our duty to the consumptive breadearner : delivered to the Oxford and District and Reading and Upper Thames Branches of the British Medical Association, June 28th, 1901 / by Sir J. Burdon-Sanderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    -1 AN ADDRESS ; ltTHE CONSUMPTIVE OUR DUTY BREADEARNER. Towards the end of next month, as yon all know, a Congress will be held in London “ for the prevention of tuberculosis.” It will, without doubt, receive the cordial support of the medical profession, but this support cannot be given effec- tively unless we have beforehand some more precise notion than is expressed in the word “ prevention” of the purposes for the accomplishment of which we are invited to meet. We may, I trust, take it for granted that the aim of the Congress will be practical rather than scientific, that we shall meet rather to act than to discuss pathological or even etiological questions. The researches of the past twenty years have taught us much that we did not know befoie both as to the nature and causes of tuberculous diseases, and have thereby furnished us with generally accepted principles for our guidance. What now chiefly concerns us is to come to right conclusions as to the way in which these principles ought to be applied. Preventive and General Sanitary Measures. These practical considerations may be divided according as they concern on the one hand the individual invalid whom we desire to benefit, or on the other the community which we •desire to protect. Among the measures to be used for the former purpose we may further distinguish between those which aim at the relief of the patient’s symptoms by medical treatment, and those which tend to the re-establishment of his health and working power. It is to this last subject (as I trust the title of my address will have indicated) that I wish specially to invite your attention ; but before I go further I must, to avoid misunderstanding, say a word as to prevention. The promoters of the great movement which culminated in the Berlin Congress of 1899, “ Zur Bekimpfungder Tuberculose” (how to Conduct the War against Tuberculosis), worked along the two parallel lines I have just referred to—the pre- ventive and the sanatory. That movement originated, I need not say, in Germany ; but let us not forget that the admirable work which has been recently done in that country