During the first half of the 20^th Century, the tuberculosis situation in Canada was serious, as was the fight against it. In 1926 the death rate for tuberculosis was 82.5 per 100,000. The First Nations rate was 10 times greater. A rate of 118.6 per 100,000 gave Quebec the highest provincial rate. In 1930 there were 3350 deaths from tuberculosis in Quebec alone. There were few sanatoria, and the campaign against tuberculosis was undeveloped. The number of new cases per year was not known, as medical practitioners did not always report the disease and avoided disclosing it on death certificates. Fifty per cent of tuberculosis patients died within five years of the diagnosis of the disease. In this discouraging situation Dr Baudouin and Dr Frappier could see no other solution than to recommend mass BCG vaccination, as is now being recommended in underdeveloped countries.

The next move was the establishment of a BCG clinic in Montreal, in 1935, for the purpose of vaccinating the newborn of tuberculous families. The babies were isolated for two or three months and then returned to their families when the post-vaccination reaction had reached its peak. This clinic was an important development because it demonstrated how successful BCG vaccination was if infants were vaccinated at birth and isolated until the tuberculin test had become positive, indicating that the vaccination had taken. -- modified from Wherrett, in The Miracle of the Empty Beds, 1977.