Tuberculosis in South African Natives With Special Reference to the Disease Amongst the Mine Labourers on the Witwatersrand. Being the Report of the Tuberculosis Research Committee, Originally Established by the Transvaal Chamber of Mines and Later Expanded Into a Joint Committee by Incorporation of Representatives of the Union Government. Publications of the South African Institute for Medical Research, Volume V, No. 30.

This elaborate report will interest all who are concerned actively in the study and prevention of tuberculosis. It shows strikingly the magnitude, complexity and difficulties of the tuberculosis problem in South Africa. Here the disease flourishes in the manner more or less characteristic of its manifestations on "virgin soil." From isolated, often distant, native communities are recruited large numbers of laborers for work, mostly underground, in the mines on the Witwatersrand. Above ground the miners live in crowded and insanitary compounds. The term of the mine labor usually is one year. The number of hours underground each day is at least ten, with little or no chance for food or rest in the meantime. It is consequently no wonder that active tuberculosis develops in large numbers of the workers, most of whom carry the disease back to their home communities on repatriation after their term is over. The report describes