[Music]
[The National Tuberculosis Association presents]
[On the Firing Line A travel tour to scenes of the fight against tuberculosis]
[Narrator: Vaughan Glaser Produced by Courier Productions, Inc. New York]
[The assistance of numerous friends who aided in the production of this motion picture is gratefully acknowledged]
[Glaser:] All over this broad land of ours,
a bitter of war is being fought against tuberculosis.
Able warriors armed with modern weapons are on the firing line.
How goes the battle?
Come with me on a journey and let's see what is being done.
[Train sounds]
First, to Washington to get a few facts.
In this building is the Census Bureau
where Uncle Sam keeps his health record books.
There is a card here for each of us,
telling when we were born, when married, what we die of
and many other facts.
Ingenious machines sort these cards
so that statistics may be compiled from them.
Imagine all the people in the United States divided into groups of 100,000 each.
Here is one such group.
This Grecian urn represents 50 deaths from tuberculosis.
In 1910, there were about 150 deaths
from tuberculosis for each 100,000 persons.
We need three urns in this role.
Ten years later, there were 100 deaths per 100,000 persons, two urns.
And in 1935, about 50,
only one urn.
Death rate cut to one third of what it was 25 years ago.
What a retreat.
[Train speeding along tracks]
Next, we visit New York City,
where so much of the nation's business is transacted.
In New York, the headquarters of the National Tuberculosis Association.
Its network of state, county, and city associations
covers the country, including our territories and possessions.
The whole enterprise is financed by the sale of tuberculosis Christmas seals, which you buy each year.
Renowned artists create a new design for the seal each year.
Here is Rockwell Kent at work on one.
The local Tuberculosis Associations
send them out to you and me.
In some places, The Scouts or other organizations lend a hand.
Every seal carries a message of hope and cheer.
With the money, these associations keep up the fight
through education of the people, by the printed word,
pamphlets,
posters,
the newspaper, exhibits, radio...
[Announcer:] "Education of the people
and through them of the state is the first and greatest need
in the prevention of tuberculosis."
These were the words of Edward Livingstone Trudeau, our first president,
when in 1905, he charted the course of the National Tuberculosis Association.
[Glaser:] Let's go next to Saranac Lake
in the beautiful Adirondacks, which Dr. Trudeau loves so well.
[Train rumbling on tracks]
Here is the bronze statue of Trudeau reclining in his chair,
a pose so characteristic of his own successful struggle against tuberculosis.
It was Trudeau who introduced the modern treatment of tuberculosis in this country:
rest, fresh air, and good food.
Nestling in the hills now surrounded by fine buildings,
we find a little red,
the first cottage built by Trudeau in 1884
for the treatment of two young women.
It has served as the inspiration for the more than 700 sanatoria built since then.
[Music]
[Train rumbling on tracks]
Let's have a look at one of these sanatoria,
or tuberculosis hospitals as they are called today.
Real hospitals for the tuberculous and not merely resting places.
Here we are at a large southern sanatorium.
This one has beds for 500 patients.
Altogether, there are now 90,000 such beds available.
Rest and more rest, as Trudeau discovered when he himself
took the cure as a young doctor.
Yes, and good food.
Nowadays, doctors don't stuff patients with more milk and eggs than they can digest,
just good, well-balanced meals,
enough to gain weight on.
Mmm.
Smell those delicious loaves.
New ways of resting the lung have been developed.
This patient is getting pneumothorax treatment.
Air is let into the chest cavity,
and that rests the lung so that it can heal.
When the diseased lung is fully healed,
it is allowed to expand again.
A lifesaver for many.
Each patient is helped to find his place in the workaday world
when he leaves the sanatorium.
Here's a class in typewriting.
In this sanatorium, as in many others,
children of tuberculous parents,
who cannot be properly protected otherwise,
are cared for in a special department of the sanatorium.
[Train whistle blowing]
Finding the cases of tuberculosis is a very important job.
Not only the specialists, but the family doctor too,
is constantly on the alert,
knowing that tuberculosis may disguise itself as some other disease.
Doctors in the villages and country districts, too,
keep in mind the dangers of unsuspected disease.
Even when patients do not complain of the common symptoms,
such as cough, tiredness, loss of weight, or indigestion,
the alert doctor thinks of tuberculosis.
Clinics for the diagnosis of tuberculosis
now exist in every enterprising community.
Specialists are in charge and X-ray services at hand.
Public health nurses teach the families of those who have tuberculosis.
They see that the doctor's orders are faithfully carried out.
They urge all members of the family to be examined,
for tuberculosis, though not inherited, runs in families.
[Train rolling on tracks]
What about the thousands of people in out-of-the-way places?
Let's see how they do it in the bayou country.
[Music]
Work in the cane fields under the hot sun is picturesque,
but mighty hard labor.
These sections are not well equipped with clinics or X-ray apparatus,
so necessary to discover tuberculosis.
Very well, says the health department,
if people cannot come to the doctor,
the doctor and all he needs will go to the people.
Here is an auto trailer, expertly designed,
which carries complete equipment for making diagnoses in the modern manner.
A doctor and nurse go with the outfit.
Advance arrangements are made with the doctors and local health departments
so that all who should be examined
will be on hand when the trailer comes.
Here we are arriving on the public square,
alongside the courthouse and ready for business.
Quietly and efficiently, the work is carried on by skilled workers.
The family doctor gets the report of the X-ray examination of his patient.
Inside the trailer, everything is snug and shipshape.
It looks compact, doesn't it?
But there's space enough to do the job well.
The dressing room is just a corner, screened off by a curtain.
The X-ray apparatus is one of the latest models,
for a poor X-ray picture maybe worse than none.
Efficiency and economy make it possible to give this important service to the people.
So that's all over.
The plate is removed, later to be developed in the darkroom,
and in a moment, the next patient will go through the same steps, inside the courthouse or sometimes a school or church.
The doctor makes the rest of the examination,
gets the history of the patient, and consults with the local doctor about the patient.
Then on their way again to the next town,
up and down throughout the state.
This shows you but one of several such diagnostic auto trailers
now being used in rural areas.
[Train whistle blowing]
[Train rolling along tracks]
[Train whistle blowing]
Now we are in a large Midwestern University.
We meet the flower of American manhood and womanhood.
How many of them will fall victims to tuberculosis?
Well, if nobody cares, at least six out of each 1,000 students
before they reach their 30s.
But someone does care,
enough to search out the very beginnings of the disease
before there are any signs or symptoms.
All students are given this simple tuberculin test
to show whether tuberculosis germs have entered the body.
All who have tuberculosis germs in their bodies are X-rayed,
one out of four in this university.
Tuberculosis must be seen before it is heard, say the doctors.
That's why they urge all young people
to be tested with tuberculin, and to be X-rayed if positive.
The X-ray plate is developed in the darkroom,
much as you develop your own Kodak pictures
in the mysterious amber lighted closet at home.
When the film is dry, the shadows are read,
or interpreted by the doctor.
Here's the chest picture of a young athlete.
The trained eye of the physicia
sees the damage already done by tuberculosis.
The fight also goes on in the quiet research laboratory.
Scientists are studying the life and habits of the germ.
Did you know that the tuberculosis germ actually breathes, eats, and reproduces?
They are finding out how the germ causes disease
and also how the body defends itself.
Someday maybe, they'll give us a specific cure.
[Train whistle blowing]
But don't exalt yet.
There is another side to this optimistic picture.
The death rate has gone down, true,
but 70,000 tuberculosis victims still march to their graves each year,
and many more are disabled.
Most of them are young people
in that period of life where it is most productive and sweet.
Eager students, young parents, wage earners on the upgrade of life.
Not an old man's disease this,
but a bitter foe of youth.
Here they are, the young people we're concerned about.
Out of each 100,000, in the age group fifteen to 45,
66 died last year.
There's another sore spot on the optimistic picture.
Certain racial groups, such as Negroes, Mexicans, and Indians,
suffer heavy losses from tuberculosis.
The death rate among Negroes is three times as high as among whites,
not only in the Southland
but also in the northern industrial centers.
Poverty, bad housing, and a depressed scale of living
seem to be largely responsible.
Living cheaply really means living expensively.
How would you like to try to keep warm this way?
Buying your firewood at the curb, sixteen sticks for five cents.
And when that is gone, perhaps on some cold night,
having to pinch pennies for food is another hardship.
Rabbits, two for a quarter.
Here's the chart we saw before,
showing the decline in the death rate among whites.
Each of these strips represents 100,000 Negroes.
And each urn, 50 deaths from tuberculosis.
But notice that the decline has been just as rapid is that among whites.
And in 1935,
Negroes suffered no more deaths than whites did in 1910.
There's a lag, but the trend is hopeful.
[Train rolling over bridge]
Another problem: industrial workers.
Did you know that tuberculosis is the particular enemy of the working classes,
the men and women on whom rest the prosperity and welfare of this nation?
In this chart, each group represents 10,000 men with a job.
Here are the professional men, here are the white collar workers,
the farmers and foresters.
Here the skilled workers, and finally, the unskilled workers.
Each urn represents one death from tuberculosis among these workers.
Professional men, not many deaths among them.
Clerks, about three times as many.
Agricultural workers seem to fare pretty well.
Skilled workers a little more than clerks.
And unskilled workers, here's our problem.
Look at the urns.
Seventeen out of each 10,000 die of tuberculosis each year.
This time, we go west,
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and California.
For here, there is still another problem.
Years ago, it got noised about that climate was the magic cure.
That error is still believed by many.
But out here in the Southwest, there are...
oh, nobody knows, but perhaps 5,000 persons who have tuberculosis
roaming aimlessly about, looking for help.
Some of them come alone,
spend their last dollar for railroad fare and cheap lodging,
look in vain for a job, and die.
Others bundle up the whole family in the old car and start out blindly,
just hoping to make a new start.
They seldom find work, eke out a miserable existence,
and when the last drop of gasoline gives out,
they become a burden on some hard pressed community.
Little can be done for them, for they have lost their settlement rights.
They don't stay long enough in one place to win the rights of a resident.
The children suffer neglect and are constantly exposed to the danger of getting tuberculosis
from the sick parents.
They become shrouded in gloom and despair.
Whatever becomes of them, no one seems to know precisely.
Though some excellent studies of this situation are now underway.
This problem is our business,
not only because we are our brother's keeper,
but also because every such sick wanderer
carries the seeds of tuberculosis along the countryside.
The wandering consumptive is, of course,
only part of the larger problem of migration,
which social organizations and government departments
are trying hard to solve.
[Train rolling along tracks]
Ah, home again. Best part of a journey.
But do you know that we are still on the front line?
For tuberculosis threatens every doorstep,
rich, poor, and medium class.
And no home is safe until every home is safe.
[Music]
[The End]