Tuberculosis at the Fair

At the New York World's Fair, in the Medicine & Public Health Building, is a high-speed X-ray machine. Visitors line up for white jackets, have an X-ray of their chests for $1. Results are sent to the family physician. Last week the machine had a startling story to tell: of 11,234 supposedly healthy persons examined last year, 3.3% were active (clinically significant) tuberculosis cases--six times the national rate.

Dr. James Risley Reuling, chairman of the Queens County Medical Society's Fair Commission (which sponsors the machine), felt the findings showed need for a serious revision in both the New York City Health Department's 1% figure for local t.b. incidence, and the National Tuberculosis Association's 3% for the entire U. S.

Equally surprising to tuberculosis experts was a recent survey among 65,459 individuals on home relief in New York City's grey belt--lower Harlem. Active cases were found for 3.3% white females, 2.2% Negro females, 5.3% white males, 3.2% Negro males. Knocked west was a longtime maxim: the Negro suffers from racial susceptibility to t.b. Nevertheless the Negro tuberculosis death rate is still five times that of the white race, possibly due to lower living standards and less medical attention. This apparent paradox showed the impossibility of estimating t.b. among the living from t.b. mortality tables--a conclusion that might account for Dr. Reuling's Fair findings.

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