COLLAPSE THERAPY FOR PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS AS A PUBLIC HEALTH MEASURE

Since the late Theodore B. Sachs called attention to the menace of the wide spread of tuberculosis in Chicago, the isolation of patients with the disease in the open, or contagious, stage has come to be considered the important feature in the campaign against this disease. Isolation of patients with tuberculosis in a contagious form from children under 16 years of age was made mandatory in 1917. Despite the energetic and even rigorous enforcement of the law, the number of uncontrolled cases of tuberculosis in the community was not decreased. Hruby¹ stated that in 1931 there were 700 patients on the waiting list of the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium and as many on the waiting lists of the Cook County Hospital and Oak Forest institution. There were 20,000 registered cases in Chicago but only 2,471 available beds. While the idea of isolating patients with open tuberculosis was correct, it failed