seem to have a particularly well organized plan of work, very hearty co-operation from the entire city (although the city government has appropriated nothing for the work), and are doing much good along lines of prevention, with dental, and nose and throat clinics, and open air schools. They have had difficulty in obtaining nurses with social training, and have been at some pains to arrange a social service training school, the program of which seems very admirable.
According to the latest report of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, there are 4,000 visiting tuberculosis nurses in the United States. There are more than 400 special tuberculosis clinics as compared with 222 in 1909. This paper deals with only a few of the larger cities.
There are many other cities and small towns having tuberculosis nurses doing work well worthy of mention. Several states have adopted the plan of carrying on the work by visiting nurses in each county. These nurses have a wide field, and are accomplishing much along educational lines, the territory which they have to cover making any great amount of actual nursing impossible. It is interesting to note their varied experiences. We read of patients prepared and sent to sanatoria and hospitals, the family and neighborhood protesting against every step; of county agents, churches, lodges or communities called upon to assist in caring for families; of long drives into the country to inspect and practically reorganize some home where several members have died, or are dying with tuberculosis; of repeated admonitions to keep windows open in rural communities, "where the air is pure because all the bad air is kept closed up in the homes and school houses." When the city tuberculosis nurse reads of all this, she feels like taking off her hat to the rural tuberculosis visiting nurse and wishing her success and fair weather.
CHICAGO
The history of the present comprehensive tuberculosis work in Chicago is closely interwoven with the history of the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute, which was organized in January, 1906. The Institute succeeded the Committee on Tuberculosis of the Visiting Nurses' Association (the pioneer Tuberculosis Committee in Chicago).
The Chicago Tuberculosis Institute gives the following as its chief aim: "The collection and dissemination of exact knowledge in regard to the causes, prevention and cure of tuberculosis." The
progress made in the tuberculosis situation of this city in the last seven years is directly due to the systematic campaign of the Institute. By exhibits, lectures, literature, stereopticon views and moving picture films, the Institute was energetically spreading during these years the knowledge concerning tuberculosis and its proper methods of prevention.
In the winter of 1906-07 a small and unpretentious sanatorium called "Camp Norwood" was built on the grounds of the Cook County Institutions at Dunning, with a total capacity of 20 beds. The Edward Sanatorium at Naperville, made possible by the munificence of Mrs. Keith Spalding, was under construction at the same time and was later made a department of the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute. The Edward Sanatorium was the chief factor in demonstrating and convincing this community that tuberculosis can be successfully treated in our climate.
In 1907, the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute established a system of dispensaries with a corps of attending physicians and nurses. The purpose was given as follows: