PREFACE
During eight successive years the writer has been engaged in special tuberculosis work, first as field nurse of the Visiting Nurse Association of Baltimore, later as organizer and director of the Tuberculosis Division of the Baltimore Health Department. Entering the field in the pioneer days of 1905, she has seen the work pass through the struggling stages of private enterprise into the well organized, almost automatic grooves of the city machinery. This continuity of service has been an experience of unique value. During this period we have walked into and backed out of many blind alleys or “No Thoroughfares,” and have acquired wisdom through the loss of infinite time, effort, and money. Although the material for the following pages was gathered in Baltimore, and is therefore, strictly speaking, of a local character, yet since practically all of the conditions indicated or dealt with are common to all towns and cities, this need not limit the application of the ideas and principles set forth.
It is also hoped that though the work of tuberculosis nursing is dealt with chiefly as done under the auspices of a Visiting Nurse Association, or as part of the work of a City Health Department, what is here presented will be of value to nurses working under private associations, and to private associations themselves. Therefore, in presenting this book to the public—to nurses, physicians, social workers, anti-tuberculosis associations, and all those engaged in public health work—the writer has two objects in view. First, to offer a working model by which any community can gain some idea as to how to organize and conduct tuberculosis work; second, to offer conclusions, gained through practical experience, as to the nurse’s part in the anti-tuberculosis campaign.
The object of the anti-tuberculosis campaign is the eradication of tuberculosis. Our experience has been to prove that the simplest and most direct method of controlling this disease is through the segregation—the voluntary segregation—of the distributor, and that to remove the patient from an environment where he is dangerous to one where he is harmless is the function of the public health nurse. This is her chief and foremost duty, and all others are subsidiary to it.
The writer wishes to express her appreciation and deep indebtedness to those friends and fellow-workers who have given her guidance and assistance during these years of service. These are: Mary E. Lent, Superintendent of the Visiting Nurse Association of Baltimore, and Susan Edmond Coyle, “lay member” of that Association; Dr. Louis Hamman, Physician-in-Charge of the Phipps Dispensary, Johns Hopkins Hospital; Dr. Samuel Wolman, First Assistant to the Phipps Tuberculosis Dispensary; Dr. Gordon Wilson, Physician-in-Charge of the Maryland University Dispensary and of the Municipal Tuberculosis Hospital; Dr. Martin F. Sloan, Superintendent of Eudowood Sanatorium; Dr. Victor F. Cullen, Superintendent of the Maryland Tuberculosis Sanatorium; and my Chief, Dr. Nathan R. Gorter, Health Commissioner of Baltimore.
Ellen N. La Motte.
London, 4 June, 1914.