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Notes
Notes TUBERCULOSIS ASSOCIATION, The Provincial Meeting of the Tuberculosis Association for 194o will be held in Oxford on J u n e 27 and 28. Further details will be sent to members of the Association in the near future. BURROW HILL SANATORIUMCOLONY.--The
Minister of Health, in a recent letter to county and county borough councils, refers to his previous circulars No 969 of March 16, 1929, and No. 1,463 dated March 4, 1935, regarding the Burrow Hill Sanatorium Colony, Frimley, Surrey, which has been provided by the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis. The Minister has already indicated in those circulars the valuable special services which this sanatorium colony is in a position to render in the provision of treatment and technical education for tuberculous youths. He is informed that at present there is a substantial margin of accommodation available at the colony for young male patients between the ages of 13 and i9 years of the type indicated in the circulars and, in view of the manifest advantages which the vocational training of such patients affords in their after-life following completion of sanatorium treatment, he again requests local authorities to give careful consideration to the special facilities offered by the Burrow Hill Sanatorium Colony with a view, if possible, to sending suitable patients from their area to the colony and thus ensuring that these special facilities are fully used. The Secretary-General of the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis has been informed by the International Union Against Tuberculosis that, owing to the present circumstances, the award of the Leon Bernard Memorial Prize has been postponed for two years. DURATION AND COST OF TUBERCULOSIS
CASES.--A study of 3o2 patients in the tuberculosis hospitals of New York State showed that the average duration of the disease at the time of the study was three years and four months. The cost of the disease, including loss of wages, physicians' services, drugs, clinic
services, and hospital care--without regard to the source of p a y m e n t - - w a s for male wage-earners $5,42t, and for female wageearners $5,132. Persons with incomes of less than $5oo were classified not as wage-earner earners but as 'dependents'. The cost of disease in this latter group averaged $2,4o2. Only 3 per cent of the 3o2 patients had family incomes of $2,5oo per a n n u m or more with which to meet the economic strain of the disease. These figures were made public by Dr Robert E. Plunkett, General Superintendent of Tuberculosis Hospitals, New York State Department of Health, at a meeting of the Cincinnati Anti-Tuberculosis League at Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 15, i94o. The issue of Minerva Medics for February 18 is devoted to phthisiology. The International Union Against Tuberculosis has decided to adjourn competition for six fellowships at the Carlo Forlanini Institute owing to European conditions.-J. Am. Med. Assoc., February 17. An antituberculous league, affiliated to the Red Cross, was recently constituted in Colombia. The Colombian Government has authorized the creation of an antitubercular stamp, 5o,ooo of which will be sold for the benefit of the Red Cross. The league will devote its efforts mainly to the prevention of the disease among children, through the founding of sanatoria, homes, and open-air schools for tuberculous and pre-tuberculous children, and the organization of domiciliary visits by public health nurses.--League of Red Cross Soc., J a n u a r y and February. The success of the campaign against tuberculosis in Belgium is shown by the fact that the mortality has fallen from 21 deaths per lO,OOO inhabitants in I9OO to 8 in 1935. The fall was more in large towns than in rural districts. In towns of more than lOO,OOO inhabitants the deaths fell from Ioo in I9o 3 to 42 in 1935, and in communes with less than 5,ooo inhabitants the fall was from lOO to 5I.--Tubercolosi, January, 194o.
216
TUB F. R c t. ~
The second Argentine Congress of Tuberculosis will be held at Porto Alegre in May, i941 , under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Brazii.--Brasig-Med., J a n u a r y 27 . Tuberculosis has recently been made notifiable in Sweden.--Tubercolosi, January, 194o. The Italian Minister of Education has recently created a chair of phthisiology at Naples, which is the second of its kind after that at Rome founded in 1928.--P01iclin. sez. Prat., February 19, Professor Gaetano Ronzoni, an eminent phthisiologist of Milan, has recently died. Policlin. sez. Prat., February 19. Since our last note (Tubercle, January, 194o), the following Paris Theses for 1939 have been devoted to tuberculosis : No. 795. R. Narboni. A study of the 'pathological' granulations in the neutrophil polymorphonuclears in experimental tuberculosis. No. 8oi. M. Brill. General considerations on the indications and results of the principal methods of treatment in pulmonary tuberculosis. No. 8o 9. A. Santolini. On the prophylaxis of the nervous complications of artificial pneumothorax. No. 814. E. L~vy. Study of a favourable case of pregnancy associated with renal tuberculosis. No. 857. P. Torres. On the evolution of tuberculous infection in the infant. No. 9o6. P. Chaignon. Treatment by sulphonamides of superadded pleuropulmonary infections in pulmonary tuberculosis. No. 912. C. Govault. Reflexogenous action of lumbar puncture in unsuccessful attempts at artificial pneumothorax, No. 928. P. Grel. Pulmonary tuberculosis and cancer. No. 929 . P. Jacquelin. Practical consideration on pregnancy in tuberculosis.
M a r c h 194 ~
No. 931 . M. Valentin. Attenuation of tuberculin reaction under the influence of violet rays. No, 932. P, Isal. Observations on bilateral simultaneous artificial pneumothorax. No, 933. L. Tahar. A rare complication of artificial pneumothorax--abundant haemothorax following insufflation. No, 97 o. P. Cordier. Prophylaxis of tuberculosis in school children. No_ 983 . M. H. Rouet. Miliary pulmonary tuberculosis and external tuberculosis. No. lol 7. E. Vaisman. On tuberculous osteo arthritis of the knee in adults. B E E T H O V E N AND T U B E R C U L O S I S In an article (Presse raM., 1938 , xI.vI, 949) Dr Paul Bodros submits the hypothesis that Beethoven, who was born in 177 ~ and died in 1827, was like Mozart and Chopin, the subject of tuberculosis, of which there was a family history. After an unhappy childhood he had a severe illness at the age of i7, which according to Weisembach, was typhoid fever, but was more probably, in Dr Bodros's opinion, a septicaemic form of tuberculosis which was the cause of his attacks of enteritis as well as of his racking cough, dyspnoea, and haemoptysis. The onset of his deafness dates from 1796 and is attributed by Dr Bodros to tuberculous otitis media, which rapidly became chronic and slowly but surely sclerotic, so that he was never able to hear the masterpieces which he produced from the Symphony in D Minor to the last six quartets and the Ninth Choral Symphony. Death was preceded by abundant ascites for which paracentesis was performed several times, and the necropsy revealed the presence of atrophic cirrhosis which was attributed by Mavrock, his medical attendant, to the musician's well-known alcoholic habits, though Bodros considers that tuberculosis was mainly responsible. A portrait of Carlo Forlanini has recently been unveiled at the house of the S~o Paulo League against Tuberculosis.--Brasilmed., November i i.
Minister of Health, in a recent letter to county and county borough councils, refers to his previous circulars No 969 of March 16, 1929, and No. 1,463 dated March 4, 1935, regarding the Burrow Hill Sanatorium Colony, Frimley, Surrey, which has been provided by the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis. The Minister has already indicated in those circulars the valuable special services which this sanatorium colony is in a position to render in the provision of treatment and technical education for tuberculous youths. He is informed that at present there is a substantial margin of accommodation available at the colony for young male patients between the ages of 13 and i9 years of the type indicated in the circulars and, in view of the manifest advantages which the vocational training of such patients affords in their after-life following completion of sanatorium treatment, he again requests local authorities to give careful consideration to the special facilities offered by the Burrow Hill Sanatorium Colony with a view, if possible, to sending suitable patients from their area to the colony and thus ensuring that these special facilities are fully used. The Secretary-General of the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis has been informed by the International Union Against Tuberculosis that, owing to the present circumstances, the award of the Leon Bernard Memorial Prize has been postponed for two years. DURATION AND COST OF TUBERCULOSIS
CASES.--A study of 3o2 patients in the tuberculosis hospitals of New York State showed that the average duration of the disease at the time of the study was three years and four months. The cost of the disease, including loss of wages, physicians' services, drugs, clinic
services, and hospital care--without regard to the source of p a y m e n t - - w a s for male wage-earners $5,42t, and for female wageearners $5,132. Persons with incomes of less than $5oo were classified not as wage-earner earners but as 'dependents'. The cost of disease in this latter group averaged $2,4o2. Only 3 per cent of the 3o2 patients had family incomes of $2,5oo per a n n u m or more with which to meet the economic strain of the disease. These figures were made public by Dr Robert E. Plunkett, General Superintendent of Tuberculosis Hospitals, New York State Department of Health, at a meeting of the Cincinnati Anti-Tuberculosis League at Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 15, i94o. The issue of Minerva Medics for February 18 is devoted to phthisiology. The International Union Against Tuberculosis has decided to adjourn competition for six fellowships at the Carlo Forlanini Institute owing to European conditions.-J. Am. Med. Assoc., February 17. An antituberculous league, affiliated to the Red Cross, was recently constituted in Colombia. The Colombian Government has authorized the creation of an antitubercular stamp, 5o,ooo of which will be sold for the benefit of the Red Cross. The league will devote its efforts mainly to the prevention of the disease among children, through the founding of sanatoria, homes, and open-air schools for tuberculous and pre-tuberculous children, and the organization of domiciliary visits by public health nurses.--League of Red Cross Soc., J a n u a r y and February. The success of the campaign against tuberculosis in Belgium is shown by the fact that the mortality has fallen from 21 deaths per lO,OOO inhabitants in I9OO to 8 in 1935. The fall was more in large towns than in rural districts. In towns of more than lOO,OOO inhabitants the deaths fell from Ioo in I9o 3 to 42 in 1935, and in communes with less than 5,ooo inhabitants the fall was from lOO to 5I.--Tubercolosi, January, 194o.
216
TUB F. R c t. ~
The second Argentine Congress of Tuberculosis will be held at Porto Alegre in May, i941 , under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Brazii.--Brasig-Med., J a n u a r y 27 . Tuberculosis has recently been made notifiable in Sweden.--Tubercolosi, January, 194o. The Italian Minister of Education has recently created a chair of phthisiology at Naples, which is the second of its kind after that at Rome founded in 1928.--P01iclin. sez. Prat., February 19, Professor Gaetano Ronzoni, an eminent phthisiologist of Milan, has recently died. Policlin. sez. Prat., February 19. Since our last note (Tubercle, January, 194o), the following Paris Theses for 1939 have been devoted to tuberculosis : No. 795. R. Narboni. A study of the 'pathological' granulations in the neutrophil polymorphonuclears in experimental tuberculosis. No. 8oi. M. Brill. General considerations on the indications and results of the principal methods of treatment in pulmonary tuberculosis. No. 8o 9. A. Santolini. On the prophylaxis of the nervous complications of artificial pneumothorax. No. 814. E. L~vy. Study of a favourable case of pregnancy associated with renal tuberculosis. No. 857. P. Torres. On the evolution of tuberculous infection in the infant. No. 9o6. P. Chaignon. Treatment by sulphonamides of superadded pleuropulmonary infections in pulmonary tuberculosis. No. 912. C. Govault. Reflexogenous action of lumbar puncture in unsuccessful attempts at artificial pneumothorax, No. 928. P. Grel. Pulmonary tuberculosis and cancer. No. 929 . P. Jacquelin. Practical consideration on pregnancy in tuberculosis.
M a r c h 194 ~
No. 931 . M. Valentin. Attenuation of tuberculin reaction under the influence of violet rays. No, 932. P, Isal. Observations on bilateral simultaneous artificial pneumothorax. No, 933. L. Tahar. A rare complication of artificial pneumothorax--abundant haemothorax following insufflation. No, 97 o. P. Cordier. Prophylaxis of tuberculosis in school children. No_ 983 . M. H. Rouet. Miliary pulmonary tuberculosis and external tuberculosis. No. lol 7. E. Vaisman. On tuberculous osteo arthritis of the knee in adults. B E E T H O V E N AND T U B E R C U L O S I S In an article (Presse raM., 1938 , xI.vI, 949) Dr Paul Bodros submits the hypothesis that Beethoven, who was born in 177 ~ and died in 1827, was like Mozart and Chopin, the subject of tuberculosis, of which there was a family history. After an unhappy childhood he had a severe illness at the age of i7, which according to Weisembach, was typhoid fever, but was more probably, in Dr Bodros's opinion, a septicaemic form of tuberculosis which was the cause of his attacks of enteritis as well as of his racking cough, dyspnoea, and haemoptysis. The onset of his deafness dates from 1796 and is attributed by Dr Bodros to tuberculous otitis media, which rapidly became chronic and slowly but surely sclerotic, so that he was never able to hear the masterpieces which he produced from the Symphony in D Minor to the last six quartets and the Ninth Choral Symphony. Death was preceded by abundant ascites for which paracentesis was performed several times, and the necropsy revealed the presence of atrophic cirrhosis which was attributed by Mavrock, his medical attendant, to the musician's well-known alcoholic habits, though Bodros considers that tuberculosis was mainly responsible. A portrait of Carlo Forlanini has recently been unveiled at the house of the S~o Paulo League against Tuberculosis.--Brasilmed., November i i.