Tuberculous Infection in the Children of Lima, Peru

The author has done more than 100,000 tuberculin tests in order to ascertain the incidence of tuberculous infection, at a different age of life. He has found 66 per cent infection at the sixth month of life, 60 per cent at the fifth year, and from 70 to 80 per cent in the adult.

The reason for the high percentage found in the first six months of life lies in the lack of special services for infected pregnant women and in the lack of systematic x-ray examination of all pregnants. The institution of such methods and services, the establishment of hospitals for the separation of the new born, previously B.C.G. vaccinated, of the infected mother, are going to aid in the lowering of the high levels of infection, morbidity and mortality, due to tuberculosis, in infancy.

Standardization of tuberculin to be used in the determination of the degrees of tuberculosis infection as well as conventional dilutions are advocated.