Tuberculosis in General Hospitals Need for a Control Program

¹ The Department of Medicine, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Every general hospital can speed the ultimate eradication of tuberculosis in this country by adopting its own tuberculosis control program. This program should emphasize at least three features: routine admission chest x-ray films for all patients and periodic chest x-ray films for personnel; isolation precautions for patients with sputum containing acid-fast bacilli; and provisions for prompt therapy of all patients found to have active pulmonary tuberculosis. No matter how large or how small the general hospital, it can find a form of routine x-ray examination best suited to it. Indeed, if a general hospital is to provide adequate medical and surgical service to its patients, it must have some type of admission chest x-ray inspection.