Tuberculosis in various ages and different races: anachronisms.

To have the privilege of presenting the 1956 Varrier-Jones Memorial Lecture here, where, within a relatively short radius nearly all of the fundamental inventions and discoveries in tuberculosis were made, is a most significant honor. With a disease of such antiquity, so widespread and so destructive among people and animals, it was to have been expected that various methods of dealing with the new armamentarium would develop among people in different parts of the world or even in the same nation. Such factors as their improper use, misinterpretations, conclusions drawn from insufficient evidence, formulation of theories, expression of personal opinions, etc., were sure to complicate the problem and mislead workers, thus seriously retarding progress. All of these and more have occurred to such a degree as to cause much confusion. It is particularly fitting that physicians in diseases of the chest from around the world should gather here and evaluate the procedures employed in the past and to recommend abandonment of anachronisms. Longitudinal Observations