The White Death - Glimpses of the Past with Karen Webster
Once called consumption and also labelled the White Death, tuberculosis (T.B.) is a deadly disease that, throughout history, has struck many people, not only locally, but throughout the world. Another older name for the condition is phthisis, which specifically refers to pulmonary consumption/tuberculosis. While tuberculosis is often associated with the lungs, it can, in fact, affect the brain, bones, kidneys or the spine.
Symptoms of the disease include weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats.
Consumption was so named because the disease appeared to consume the victim’s body. In looking at some random death registrations, we find that, in Brussels in 1888, on one page of 12 reported causes of death, two were attributed to consumption. One victim was a 31 year-old barrister and another was an 11-month-old girl. That is a statistic of one in six deaths being from consumption, while other causes were old age, typhoid, stroke and accidents. Similarly, looking at one page of 19 death registrations in Ashfield Township in 1905, three were cited as the result of consumption and involved 30-, 34- and 40-year old men. It is highly unlikely that any family in our area has not been affected by this disease at one time or another.
Because the treatment for tuberculosis was not discovered until the mid-20th century, all sorts of theories and remedies abounded in local newspapers. Dr. T. A. Slocums offered cod liver oil as a cure-all and a Dr. I. C. Ayes felt that a Cherry Pectoral was the best cure.
Tuberculosis is caused by a germ called tubercle bacillus. This bacterium is only viable in a human or animal body. Once the bacteria are outside the body and exposed to sunlight and/or drying, they die. Tuberculosis is spread through saliva and is also airborne through sneezing or coughing. In 1904, an editorial in the Zurich Herald cautioned about the ways that consumption was spread and declared that spitting was a dangerous and filthy habit. Sharing utensils and other household items also spreads the disease. Humans can also contract tuberculosis from cattle. Once pasteurization of milk became the norm, this threat was gone.
Tuberculosis was once thought of as being hereditary because several family members might succumb to it. Instead, it was the proximity of family members and the sharing of common goods that was the cause. Scientist Robert Kock was able to isolate the tubercle bacillus in 1882, but it wasn’t for another 60 years that a cure was found.
Hospitals for the care and treatment of tuberculosis are called sanitaria, which comes from the Latin for “health-giving”. Various spellings of sanitarium are to be found. In 1902, the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives was opened. Sanitaria were located outside city centres for two reasons: the feeling that country air was more pure and because of phthisiophobia – the fear of contracting tuberculosis. Other sanitaria in Ontario were located in Ottawa, Brantford, Toronto, Hamilton and the Queen Alexandra in London, Ontario. This facility was later named the Beck Memorial Sanatorium. Not all persons recovered in these institutions, but those who did were often under treatment for several years.
The Seaforth News in November of 1918 cautioned readers, in light of the recent influenza epidemic (Spanish Flu), to be taking special precautions to avoid consumption. These factors included avoiding needless work and worry, partaking of regular nourishing meals and ensuring a plentiful supply of pure fresh air both day and night.
At one point, it was reported that more people died in Canada from tuberculosis than were killed in the Great War (1914-1918).
In 1943, Selman Waksman discovered a compound that acted against tuberculosis, called streptomycin. The compound was first given to a human patient in 1949 and the patient was cured. Although a cure had been found, recovery was not immediate. It took up to two years for the treatment to be effective. By 1952, it was found that the use of three specific drugs, at a time, decreased the length of treatment, from 18 months to nine by 1970 and even later, in 1980, the introduction of a fourth drug to the regime brought the treatment time down to four months.
Local people did their part to combat this disease. A dance was held in Blyth in 1949 in aid of the CPT (cancer, polio and tuberculosis) fund. In 1951, the Blyth Lions invited the public to a lecture by a representative of the Beck Institute. That same year, the Lions also sponsored a mass, free x-ray clinic (evidence of T. B. can be found, by x-rays, of scarred lung tissue).
Tuberculosis is not a disease of the past. In countries like India, Indonesia and China, it still is a threat to human life.
Treatment with various drugs is quite costly and in these countries with high populations, many are unable to afford the necessary drugs. Worse still, some people may begin treatment with drugs but later run out of finances to continue treatment. When this occurs, some forms of T.B. become drug-resistant and no existing therapy can guard against that.
As of 2020, the incidence rate of tuberculosis in Canada was at 47 cases per 100,000 of the population. In India, the current rate is 28 cases in 100 people.
With proper use of available drugs and common-sense precautions, it is to be hoped that tuberculosis, like many other scourges of the past, can be eliminated.