[Your Tuberculosis Association presents]

["You Can Help"]

[Narrator:] One of the dread four horsemen of the apocalypse is pestilence, the plagues that have scourged mankind since earliest times. Of these none has claim more lives than the white plague, tuberculosis.

Some of the greatest names in medicine have waged the war against TB; since Hippocrates first defined its symptoms five hundred years before the time of Christ.

But it was a little more than a hundred years ago that the chance observation of children listening to the magnified sounds of tapping on a hollow log gave Laennec, a young French doctor, the inspiration for the stethoscope.

Later in the 19th century, Villemin proved that TB was a contagious disease. Then Louis Pasteur discovered that germs were the cause of contagious disease.

The German scientist Koch was the first to find the TB germ, the tuberculosis bacillus. But not until Roentgen discovered x-rays could the actual destruction caused by the germ be seen inside the living body.

Modern sanatorium treatment in this country began in the Adirondacks, when Trudeau found that rest, fresh air and good food helped him to recover from the supposedly incurable TB.

Nineteen-hundred, and with the new century came a new idea; to fight TB with knowledge. To teach people about TB so that it can be found early when chances for recovery are best.

With this in mind, a group of scientists, physicians and other public-spirited citizens founded what is now the National Tuberculosis Association.

From these beginnings came the local TB association in your community, formed by your neighbors in the interest of better public health.

Here's how it works; the people elect a board of directors, representing a cross section of the community, businessmen and housewives, churchmen, doctors, educators, newspaper men, industrialist and legislators.

The board employs an executive secretary; together they plan a program for tuberculosis control. The secretary needs a staff of trained technical workers to mobilize the army of volunteers so necessary for community action against TB.

[Fact Finding]

A program begins with fact finding. The secretary must know how many deaths were caused by TB during the past year.  Are there enough doctors, nurses, social workers, sanatorium beds, clinics, and hospitals?

Are there special groups in the community with a higher incidence of TB? For his information, the secretary consults agencies like these.

[Image of buildings with signs outside, "Board of Education, Medical Society, Hospitals, Health Dept., Dept. Public Welfare, Chambers of Commerce."]

From them he can fill in his picture of the community, learn its weak points, know how to build a most effective program.

Of primary importance to such a program is health education, carefully planned with the help of other community organizations. For education must be more than merely telling a story, it was must influence behavior, form habits of thought and action.

Additional persons must be reached through those already educated. Finally, it must create a demand for more education for which leadership has been developed.

Thus the association plans its educational program for the use of such groups as teachers and school administrators, speakers, churchmen, and those being trained for professional careers: doctors, nurses, and social workers.

The association can reach all groups because its board of directors is drawn from all aspects of community life. Largely an educational job is the phase of the association's work known as Case Finding.

Control of TB depends on finding the people who have it before there are symptoms, before the victims themselves are aware of it. Unknown cases are often found by the family physician in the course of physical examinations and among young people by tuberculin testing in the schools.

If people are made aware of the value of periodic chest x-rays, the TB discovered will usually be in the early stage. If, however, TB is not look for until the patient displays symptoms of the disease, the cases found are apt to be in the far advanced state when cure is uncertain and costly.

The association may be called upon to furnish x-ray equipment, x-ray film, or technical and clerical services until such time as the health department can take over the responsibilities.

Since TB control depends on finding unknown and unsuspected cases; a program to wipe out the disease must strive to x-ray every adult in the community.

To do this, the health department and the tuberculosis association organize local committees made up of public-spirited volunteers. With their help and with the impetus given the drive by industry, church, school, and welfare groups, complete coverage of the community is assured.

[Treatment]

Those individuals whose x-ray indicates TB are re-examined by the private physician and the health department, the local association may help by supplying public health nursing, social service, or other professional aides as demonstration to the community to show, for example, the need for adequate following up of a case.

Follow-up work includes the medical examination and x-ray of contacts, the family and close associates of the person found to have TB.

When the person with TB is receiving treatment, the association works with the sanatorium staff to give him and his family the facts they need to know about TB. The patient must be prepared for instance, for a long period of bed treatment; perhaps training for a new job will be necessary.

For early in his sanatorium stay, the association and other agencies are beginning to plan for his eventual convalescence and re-employment. Once discharged from the sanatorium, he can look to his family physician as well as his TB association and health department for advice on his job, his recreation, and the facilities available for physical checkups.

If the facilities for helping discharged patients and their families do not exist, the association must try to influence the proper agencies to appropriate funds to cover the needs.

[Public Information]

Among the greatest influencing factors open to the TB association are the channels of public information:  the press, from the large dailies to the hand printed school newspapers, radio, and television. A year-round public information campaign invaluable as an aid to an educational program, also serves to tell you how your money is being spent, what is being done for the public health in your community.

[Seal Sale]

The entire program of the tuberculosis association is financed by the sale of Christmas seals primarily through the mail or by volunteers selling TB seals and health bonds.

Of the money collected in the community, 95 percent remains in the community and state where it was raised, thus the people who contributed can see the visible results of service within their community.

The remaining five percent goes to the National Association, which, like the state association, exists as a service organization for the local, channeling information, producing materials and giving consultations.

These three -- the national, state, and local associations -- work together to further TB control on their respective levels. In some instances, they can extend their work to other health needs.

They also work together in the large program of research, from which it is hoped will eventually come the cure for the disease. Meanwhile, tuberculosis, once the cause of more deaths than any other single disease, is being defeated in the United States with the weapons now available.

The goal of your tuberculosis association is to stamp out TB forever in your community. You can help.

[ Music ]

[The End, Produced for the National Tuberculosis Association by the Paul J. Fennell Co.]