Abstract
The possible value of various meteorologic factors in the prevention and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis cannot be determined with certainty from an analysis of the fluctuating morbidity and mortality rates, which are so much more responsive to other influences. 1 Methods recently used in the attempt to explain the existing variations in the tuberculosis-rates in different parts of the United States on the basis of climatology would give quite different conclusions if applied to the figures of half a century ago. 2
An enormous clinical experience has yielded a similar diversity of conclusions. Davos and Saranac Lake, Florida and the Riviera, Asheville and Italy, Colorado and Egypt, offer every combination of altitude, humidity and temperature to the enthusiastic but inconsistent climatologist. 3 Human experiments such as afforded by the group who inhabited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky 4 or a similar group in Alaska 5 have been likewise inconclusive. The effects of artificial hyperpyrexia 6 in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis still lack confirmation. Animal experiments 7 , 8 have repeatedly disproved the reported 9 beneficial results of briefly exposing tuberculous animals to high temperatures. Induction of fever by the administration of dinitrophenol, 5 mg. 3 times a week, 10 or by exposure to the general or local condenser-field or the electromagnetic field of 6-meter wavelength 1500-watt generator twice weekly for 10-minute periods 11 were similarly without demonstrable effect on the course of experimental tuberculosis in guinea pigs.
On the other hand, the exposure of infected guinea pigs to continuous warmth throughout the period of infection has given definite and surprisingly good results. So far, 225 guinea pigs, kept in 45 cages, at a temperature of over 80°F., and usually between 85 and 90°, at the Olive View Sanatorium for 3 months after inoculation with from 0.1 to 0.0001 mg. of the virulent human type tubercle bacilli H37, H98, or H115 during the past 5 years have shown, on the average, just half as much tuberculosis when necropsied at the end of 3 months as did 150 guinea pigs similarly inoculated at the same time and kept in 30 cages at outside temperature.
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