THE STUDENT NURSE AND TUBERCULOSIS

Abstract

Tuberculosis among nurses has long been a serious problem, although it has not been generally recognized in this country. As the morbidity and mortality from tuberculosis in the general population have decreased, the incidence of disease among nurses has become more conspicuous and the magnitude of the problem more obvious. The problem is of universal interest among physicians, since some of them send their daughters to schools of nursing, many of them teach in such schools, and nearly all of them recommend nurses to their private patients. A small group of physicians from various parts of the world has brought to light the fact that in some hospitals outrageously high percentages of students of nursing became contaminated with tubercle bacilli. It is almost unbelievable that, with so much available knowledge of technics which are effective in preventing the spread of disease, a hundred per cent of the girls who entered