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noted that most of these false addresses are from poor law
infirmaries, hospitals and institutions generally. It is quite rare
to receive false addresses on the notifications of private medical
men. Patients whose addresses are ascertained to be false while
they are still detained in hospitals, discharge themselves precipitately
when this fact is communicated to them, and then refuse to
give their destinations on leaving. Thus, a patient entered a poor
law infirmary with phthisis, and was placed in a ward with other
consumptives, some of whose addresses he noted. He had given
a false address on admission. When this address was found to
be false, he was informed of the fact and was discharged at his
own request. He visited the home of one of his fellow-patients,
X., in the infirmary, asked for the loan of some money from the
wife of X., and arranged that she should receive his letters. He
was now notified by a large hospital to have phthisis, and described
as living at the address of X. The house was visited by the staff
and the true state of affairs discovered and disclosed to the
hospital authorities. The patient asked for his discharge and left,
refusing his address. He was next notified as an out-patient
from the address of Y., another patient whose acquaintance he
had made in the infirmary. The investigation of these false
addresses leads to much correspondence and much loss of time.
The problem of these dumped cases is a very serious one for the
Borough. There would appear to be a continuous immigration
into Finsbury of consumptives who have developed the disease
elsewhere. And unfortunately, from a public health standpoint,
once they move into Finsbury, they show no disposition to move
out again. So that in the course of time, when these patients die,
their deaths are counted by the Registrar-General as Finsbury
deaths and tend to attach to the Borough a public health degradation
which it does not really deserve. The consumptives who live
in common lodging houses are in dire straits. They are ordered
by their medical advisers to have eggs and plenty of milk. The
systematic drinking of milk, and especially of hot milk, is such a
rare phenomenon in these institutions that the patient who
attempted it would be marked and his disease would be discovered
to his detriment. Such patients must, and do, work until they are