Preventive Effects of Isoniazid in the Treatment of Primary Tuberculosis in Children

Abstract

SINCE the discovery of streptomycin the approach to tuberculosis in children has come full circle. Until about fifteen years ago the prevailing practice could have been described as hopeful prevention. In the absence of specific therapy pediatricians applied general measures to children with a primary tuberculous infection, hoping that the undesirable consequences of the infection could be prevented by increased host resistance and by removal from the source of infection. It was the age of the preventorium, but, if a complication developed, there was little in the way of specific therapy.The introduction of antimicrobial agents effective against the tubercle . . .