Medicine: Black Tuberculosis

In the last 25 years tuberculosis has been beaten down from first to seventh place on the list of U. S. killers. Although doctors know all about the cause, a great deal about the cure of T. B., it is not yet conquered and still runs rampant in the slums of crowded cities. Hardest hit by the white plague is the black population, which loses annually about five citizens out of every 2,000 (general U. S. average: one out of every 2,000).

Special hospitals for Negro victims of T. B. are few and far between. Last winter the Federal Government gave Washington’s Howard University for Negroes (Washington, D. C. is the Negro Paris) a WPA grant of $600,000 to build a T. B. clinic and hospital. Heartened by this recognition, scholarly Dr. Numa Pompilius Garfield Adams, dean of Howard’s medical school, promptly called a meeting of 50 black and white tuberculosis experts. Last week at Howard he welcomed the delegates to the First Annual Conference of Negro Tuberculosis workers.

Interesting facts presented:

> According to Dr. Esmond Ray Long of Philadelphia, the type of T. B. which strikes Negroes, most susceptible group in the U. S. population to respiratory diseases, is the same as that which strikes whites. T. B. develops and spreads more quickly among Negroes, and they die more quickly.

>For every case of advanced colored T. B. there are five minimal (early) cases. But minimal cases are hard to detect, and most doctors pay them no mind. Without “mass X-raying of entire communities,” said Dr. Peyton Fortine Anderson of Manhattan, it is impossible to nip T. B. in the bud. Modern equipment will make such detective work practicable.