| Learning Objective #1: Apply an historical framework to contemporary health care debates | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Apprehend how the social, cultural, political, scientific, and economic phenomena shaped nurses' understanding of children's 'pretuberculosis' diagnosis and their subsequent practice during the study years |
Purpose: Tuberculosis was a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in early twentieth century America. This paper analyzes the way in which nurses interpreted research related to pediatric 'pretuberculosis' and how they used this information in practice. Methods and Sources: Social history methodology was used. Primary sources included archival materials from New York City's Municipal Archives, Bellevue Hospital, Columbia University, New York Hospital and the New York Academy of Medicine. Results and Conclusions: The early twentieth century was a frustrating time in the campaign against TB. The disease's etiology and transmission were increasingly well understood but there were few effective treatments. As a result, prevention was the centerpiece of most TB public health campaigns. The 1907 finding that many children harbored the tuberculosis (TB) bacillus shocked the scientific community and stimulated ia series of TB prevention interventions. Nurses were at the forefront of numerous initiatives predicated on the newly constructed disease category of 'pretuberculosis.' Implications: Explicating the rise and fall of 'pretuberculosis' provides a new perspective, that of time, into the social and cultural variables that influence research, as well as the way in which scientific findings are translated into practice. This knowledge can be used to develop more sophisticated frames of reference to study the links between science, policy, and practice. Studying the past can also reveal new dimensions into the way in which society conceptualizes disease risk and prevention. As in the early twentieth century, children are again at the center of many current hotly contested health and social welfare debates. Finally, preventing infectious disease is a priority now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as it was at the beginning of the twentieth. Studying what worked in the past, what did not, and why has the potential to enrich nursing care today and in the future.
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