Doctor Peters was especially concerned about people with advanced tuberculosis living at home:

This type of patient is the spreader of tuberculosis; they spit countless tubercle bacilli for years; they are almost invariably entirely dependent on their children, and are therefore frequently in contact with their young grandchildren. They do not personally feel ill enough to go to bed, and as a matter of fact bed rest does not seem to give any beneficial results, and they feel so miserable they love company, and so come in contact with great numbers of people.¹¹

In Newfoundland, people were also poorly educated about TB. Sometimes they did not know that it could be spread by sneezing and coughing. In 1908, a medical student named J.M. Little worked with Sir Wilfred Grenfell on the Labrador coast. Although he sounds a little snobbish, this is what he had to say about the people he met there:

The people seem to be peculiarly unintelligent with regard to medical matters and it is impossible to elicit an intelligent history, or get an idea of symptoms from them unless you have them under observation in a hospital. It is a good deal like treating children only without the intelligent watchfulness of the parents.¹²

TB and Native People

TB is often called the "white person's disease." This is because there was no TB in North and South America until white explorers came. When white people passed on the disease to the native people, the results were terrible. Because the native people had never had TB before, their systems could not fight the disease. They had no natural defenses. Thousands died.

TB was probably one of the reasons the Beothucks died out. Three well known Beothucks all died of TB: John August in 1788, Demasduit (Mary March) in 1820, and Shawnadithit in 1829. The Innu and Innuit of Labrador, as well as the Micmacs on the island, also suffered greatly from TB. Sometimes whole villages were wiped out.