. Tuberculosis in Massachusetts : prepared by the Massachusetts State Committee for the International Congress on Tuberculosis, held in Washington, D. C., September 21 to October 12, 1908. twenty patients. Themens ward has been occupied eighteen months; the womensward about three months. Pulmonary tuberculosis has caused about the same proportionof deaths at the Westborough Insane Hospital as it has at Dan-vers; the tabulated percentages of the two institutions vary butslightly. It is fair to infer, then, that about the same conditionsprevail at both institutions, and that the same explanation
. Tuberculosis in Massachusetts : prepared by the Massachusetts State Committee for the International Congress on Tuberculosis, held in Washington, D. C., September 21 to October 12, 1908. twenty patients. Themens ward has been occupied eighteen months; the womensward about three months. Pulmonary tuberculosis has caused about the same proportionof deaths at the Westborough Insane Hospital as it has at Dan-vers; the tabulated percentages of the two institutions vary butslightly. It is fair to infer, then, that about the same conditionsprevail at both institutions, and that the same explanations willapply in both cases. At Westborough shacks for the open-airtreatment of tuberculosis have been in use for several years,and recently a special sanatorium ward for about twenty suchcases has been erected. Besides the five state hospitals for the insane authorized to re-ceive acute cases of insanity, Massachusetts has several specialinstitutions designed to care only for such chronic cases as aretransferred from the insane hospitals. Naturally many suchchronic cases fall victims to tuberculosis in spite of intelligentmanagement. Entering an asylum with lowered vitality incident. PAGE. 85 to the mental disease, and augmented by prolonged hospital resi-dence, where necessary asylum economies are not calculated tofortify the individual against infectious agencies, it naturally fol-lows that a large percentage of such patients succumb to thetubercle bacillus, a germ which appears to be first in the list ofthose causing terminal infections, and adapted to overcome animalbeings that have suffered reductions in the vital powers of resist-ance. The Worcester Insane Asylum began operations in the old build-ings vacated by the Hospital. Into such wards it had to receivethe culled-out chronic cases from the state hospitals. It wouldseem as though these conditions favored a high death-rate fromtuberculosis in this as well as the other asylums. Under the cir-cumstances, a percentage of
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