Bovine tuberculosis : cause, cure, and eradication a summation of material, facts and eminent opinions for the use of farmers, cattle-owners, milk-producers, veterinarians, students, and others with appendices on the diseases which simulate tuberculosis, actinomycosis and Johne's disease also appendices on calf mortality and the destruction of rats, and a glossary of technical words.

Date:
[1912?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Bovine tuberculosis : cause, cure, and eradication a summation of material, facts and eminent opinions for the use of farmers, cattle-owners, milk-producers, veterinarians, students, and others with appendices on the diseases which simulate tuberculosis, actinomycosis and Johne's disease also appendices on calf mortality and the destruction of rats, and a glossary of technical words. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The psychic eiement Phthisio- phobia This thinker points out that “....since a patient nas not merely a body, but a mind and soul, there are two distinct aspects in which this treatment (home treatment) can be regarded, the physical and the psychical, the former concerned with the arrangement of the details of the patient’s life and surroundings, the nature of his exercise and rest, his dietary, amusements, occupations, etc. ; the latter dealing with his mental capacity and his attitude towards his sickness, his spirit, courage, and will, and his relation to his physician.” “ When I speak of will power,” he1 2 3 continues, “ I refer not merely, or chiefly, to that more ordinary type of will which is able to impose its wishes upon others, but more especially to that higher type which can turn its will inward and conquer itself, which can force itself to the difficult denial of pleasure for profit, which can obev tedious orders strictly and closely, and which can compel cheerfulness when all around seems dark.” Schroeder deals with “....that inordinate fear of tuber- culosis which has been discussed by manj' writers under the name of phthisiophobia/'” but which, for that reason, cannot be lightly dismissed, especially as even positive phthisiophobia has not been proven to be altogether unreasonable. It is regrettable that the protection of public health often necessitates the imposition of annoying and impeding restrictions that add to the cares of those whose lives are burdened with a serious disease. But what other course can we follow ? “ Tuberculosis, unfortunately, is infectious, and the best way to escape it is to shun the virus to which it is due and to avoid the source from which this virus is expelled. A policy that attempts to characterise as anything better than extremely dangerous the sources from which the essentially necessary causative agent of an infectious disease that is responsible for more than 10 per cent, of all deaths is derived, is very shortsighted. To refrain, through motives of sympathy and charity, from imposing various irksome and disadvan- tageous restrictions on those who are the unhappy victims of tuber- culosis is equivalent to making sentiment an apology for the sacrifice of thousands of healthy persons in the present generation and millions in coming generations to a deadly plague. “ When we actually realise the truth about tuberculosis and the number of victims that it claims, we are in a better state of mind to join those who may be classed as afflicted with phthisiophobia than those who seek to belittle the dangerous character of tuberculous individuals for their fellow creatures. During 1908, according to the most reliable figures obtainable, 160,000 human lives were prematurely ended by tuberculosis in the United States alone, and this enormous number does not include the deaths hastened by tuberculosis but 1. Clias. L. Minor, Asheville, N.C., 6th 1. C. on T., Vol. I. pt. 2. p. 1021. 2. 25th Annual Kept. B. A. I., U.S.A., 1908, p. 110. 3. Or tuberculophobia,” as H. S. Anders terms it.