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November 16, 1967 Terrace Bay News Page 9 T.B.----A BURNING ISSUE As a taxpayer, what would be your reaction if someone proposed burning down a sixteen-room con- solidated school? It sounds wild, but last year a group of Canadian taxpayers seriously advocated just that. They weren't in the majority, and they were persuaded not to do it -~ but they weren't fooling when they suggested it. The suggestion was made because 32 of the children in their 16 room school developed tuberculosis . Some of them were very sick indeed before their disease was discovered. That is enough to frighten any sensible community . In fact, it would be a very irresponsible com- munity if it were not frightened. And when the parents recovered from the first shock they were very wise about it. The first thing they did was learn more about tuberculosis. Like a great many other communities in Canada the people had thought TB was pretty well controlled. Quite a lot of people had felt, for ex- ample, that really, it didn't matter whether one went to the tuberculin testing surveys or nof. One of the things they learned was that despite so many of their children having to go to sanatorium things could have been a lot worse if there had not been systematic tuberculin testing surveys in recent years. It was a routine tuberculin survey, carried on by the health department, which alerted them to the danger. The public health nurses, on a routine check up, found that eleven children who had been negative to the test when it was done before were now positive -- which showed contact with someone spreading TB germs. The whole school was immediately tuberculin tested again, and all those who were positive to the test had a chest X-ray. There were some frightened parents when they found how many had to go to sanatorium. There were also some pretty serious looking staff members at the sanatorium when they found how many of these teenagers had positive sputum -~ which means they were infectious. Still, there was one thing for which to be thankful -~ they had been found. If it hadn't been for the routine tuberculin testing there is no telling how long it might have been before their disease was dis- covered. - ; : Naturally, a great many other boys and girls had been infected. So had some' of the teachers, and people such as the hairdresser who saw a great deal of the girls. Because of the regular tuberculin -- testing the health department knew who had been infected recently. Some idea of the size of the pro- blem can be estimated from the fact that more than 200 persons are receiving drugs to prevent break down. This happened in a prosperous community where children and parents were well nourished and there were comfortable homes -- the kind of community where we are inclined to presume that tuber- culosis epidemics could not occur. This one should be a warning to us all. REMEMBRANCE DAY ( from Page 1) held their Remembrance Day dinner in the Masonic Hall. President Pat Jones welcomed those gathered and introduced Head Table guests as: Mr. & Mrs.P. Coupal, Mrs. P. Jones, Reeve and Mrs. Cavanaugh Rev. Husser, Mr. & Mrs. J. Ferrier. Rev. Husser said Grace and John Dejonghe pro- posed the toast to the Queen and Hugh Boudreau proposed the toast to the Fallen. President Jones requested all to stand for one min ute's silence in respect to Jack Beaumont and Tom McKay, President and Ist. Vice President of the Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario Command who passed away this past year. Mr. Jones commended Paul Coupal, treasurer of the local branch on a good job he is doing. He thanked Mrs. D. Coupal, president of the Ladies Auxiliary and all the members who helped make the dinner a success. ; President Mrs. Dot Coupal presented Mr. Jones with a cheque, proceeds of the dinner, to be used in aid of the proposed new Legion building. President Jones also thanked Nick Bajkiewicz, me bership chairman, who had presented many new mem- bers to the branch. Pat Jones has accepted the President's chair for another year. Dancing followed the dinner. oa nnd omhde-