Topic spans: 1943 - 2001
Tuberculosis: Old Disease, Continuing Threat
The "rest cure" – an extended stay in a sanatorium, or TB hospital, away from home and family – was the only hope for tuberculosis patients in the first half of the 20th century. Then came a cure for the dreaded lung disease: powerful antibiotics that made the sanatorium a thing of the past. But TB was far from eradicated, and new drug-resistant strains surfaced in the 1980s, threatening vulnerable groups such as the urban poor and northern aboriginals. Now, over half of new TB cases in Canada are found in newcomers, and Canadian scientists are at the forefront of new treatments for the disease.
Image of Tuberculosis patient x-ray from US Department of Health and Human Services
10 television clips
7 radio clips
On the M.V. Christmas Seal
Broadcast Date: June 16, 1961
It's the only floating X-ray unit in the world. Each summer the M.V. Christmas Seal visits the remote coastal communities of Newfoundland to test residents for tuberculosis. The benefits are clear: the death rate from TB in 1959 was the lowest ever recorded in the province. A CBC reporter notes that people were reluctant to board the ship when it began its rounds in 1949, but now everyone lines up for the experience.On the M.V. Christmas Seal
• About 80,000 Newfoundlanders in 1,300 coastal communities were surveyed by the Christmas Seal.• In its later years, the Christmas Seal not only took chest X-rays for TB but also tested for diabetes and administered the polio vaccine. In 1963 it carried out a survey of physically handicapped children on Newfoundland's south coast.
• Visitors to the boat were also educated about the causes, prevention and treatment of tuberculosis.
• The Christmas Seal got its name in a contest for Newfoundland school children and sanatorium patients. It was named for the Christmas Seal campaign, an annual fundraising effort by provincial tuberculosis associations.
• Christmas Seals are colourful stamps that are placed on Christmas-card envelopes alongside postage stamps.
• A Danish postal worker launched the idea of Christmas Seals in 1904, and the concept had spread to the U.S. by 1907 and to Canada the following year.
• From the 1930s into the 1980s, mass X-ray surveys were the most efficient way to spot TB among a population of apparently healthy people. Everyone in a community was X-rayed whether they showed symptoms or not. But as the TB rate declined, surveys turned up fewer positive results and the cost per diagnosis skyrocketed. Now X-ray surveys are conducted only in communities that are likely to yield a higher-than-average rate of TB.
• By the 1940s, most provinces operated travelling X-ray clinics to test people in school groups, workplaces, aboriginal communities and rural towns for TB. Trucks and buses were outfitted with X-ray machines, and the Ontario Tuberculosis Association even operated a train that travelled to northern communities to test for TB.
On the M.V. Christmas Seal
Medium: Television
Program: CBC Television News
Broadcast Date: June 16, 1961
Guest(s):
Reporter: Darce Fardy
Duration: 1:54
Last updated:
July 7, 2009
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17 clips in this topic . page
Radio
3:15
March 7, 1949
Polio patients from Canada's North are flown in for treatment.
Radio
14:01
The CBC Stamp Club broadcasts from a children's hospital in 1950, cheering up some young stamp collectors suffering from tuberculosis.
Topic from Radio-Canada
For Teachers - Educational activities
tuberculosis · tb · sanatorium · respiratory disease · bcg
On the M.V. Christmas Seal.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: July 7, 2009.
[Page consulted on Feb. 9, 2010.]