The Tuberculosis Problem in the Mobilization of Military and Naval Personnel

Abstract

This problem consists very simply of rejecting for military and naval service all those, first, who have tuberculosis in any active form, second, those who have tuberculosis in an inactive form which has any slight likelihood of being reactivated by the exercise and exhaustion concomitant with service in active warfare and, third, those in whom there will be too large a percentage of tuberculosis develop even though perfectly normal at the time of examination. The Government has half solved the first group, that of the active tuberculous, by decreeing that every candidate for the honor of defending his Country have an x-ray examination of the chest, but no provision has been made for x-ray survey of the men now in the services. Bringing in recruits who have been carefully selected and surveyed for tuberculosis elimination, and then mixing them with the unsurveyed group now in the Army and Navy service, is like sorting apples at great expense and upon completion of the procedure, mixing the sound apples with other apples, some of which are rotten. Persistance in such procedure will entitle our Democracy to bear, without complaint, some of the charges of futility made by Totalitarians. X-ray of all Service men, new and old, should eliminate most immediately infectious cases, providing x-ray of known value and not new experimental methods, are used. The only methods that have had any extensive use, and with which any considerable numbers of interpreters of x-ray films have had any experience, are the 14x17 gelatine and paper films. Both are adequate, and only they are proven adequate, for this huge and tremendously important task. E. L. Cooper (Brit. M. J., 2: 245, Aug. 24, 1940), reporting a survey of 9000 Australian Cadets by the 35 mm. film, makes what are apparently contradictory statements. He