Experiment in Enthusiasm

Abstract

SEVEN years ago there were 1,712 unhospitalized people in Mississippi with known active tuberculosis, 90 percent of whom were not receiving any sort of care; and there were 783 beds for tuberculosis patients, 777 of them occu¬ pied. New cases were being discovered every day. Four years later this backlog of cases had been cleared up, and by 1956 nearly 85 percent of the newly reported cases were being treated.How was this done?"By building more tuberculosis hospital fa¬ cilities," probably would be the answer of people familiar with tuberculosis control and the rec¬ ommendations for hospitalization.But there was one big difficulty. Among the 48 States in the Union at that time, Mississippi ranked 48th in both per capita and spendable family income. Obviously, this solution was out.Although there were in existence drugs that were successful in treating tuberculosis, their cost and difficulty of administration made any sort of mass approach impractical. Then isoniazid came along and a successful formula was found: isoniazid, in combination with other drugs, and enthusiasm, administered in equal parts. With this formula, the Mississippi State Board of Health made a new approach to the Dr. Blakey is director of preventable disease control, Mississippi State Board of Health. The other au¬ thors are with the Bureau of State Services of the Public Health Service: Dr. Hofstra as chief of Pro¬ gram Services, Chronic Disease Branch; Miss Gilbertson as public health nursing consultant, and Miss Wyman as public health adviser, Tuberculosis Branch.