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The above details are given in the case of deaths only, since the occupations of the notified
patients, who constitute an artificial class created by statute, afford no index of the social status and
employment of the total number of consumptives in the Borough. There is no trade employing
any considerable number of persons in Kensington which especially predisposes to consumption, but
the figures given are of interest in that they show that out of 155 deaths from consumption only
eight occurred in well-to-do persons. Four cases in which no information was obtained were
those of homeless persons from common lodging-houses or furnished rooms.
The inference to be drawn is that in the future, as in the past, the abolition of consumption
will continue to depend on the adoption of measures designed to bring into the lives of the poor
those safeguards which render the rich practically immune to phthisis.
Preventive Measures.—The measures to be adopted for the prevention of phthisis may be
classified as direct and indirect. The prevention of overcrowding in homes and in workshops, the
provision of adequate light and ventilation, and the closing or demolition of insanitary houses may
be mentioned as examples of action which have no doubt been indirectly responsible for the steady
decrease in the death-rate of phthisis which has occurred in the last twenty years. The scope of
the sanitary inspectors is seriously limited by the fact that the working classes cannot pay rents
which would, at the same time, secure adequate cubic space in the homes they occupy, and a profit
for the landlord; but although difficulties stand in the way, there is every reason to believe that the
improvement in the conditions of the homes, the workshops, and the schools of the healthy, will
do more to prevent the spread of consumption than is likely to be effected by the closest attention
to the environment of those who are already sick. The following description of the action taken
by those who deal directly with existing centres of infection, must accordingly be understood to
apply to a part only of the preventive work which is carried out in the Borough.
Work of the Lady Sanitary Inspectors.—For the purpose of making inquiries, offering
assistance and giving advice, 538 first visits and 575 revisits were paid by the Lady Inspectors
to the homes of the consumptive persons who were notified to the Public Health Department
during tne year. In addition, 81 visits were paid to the homes of persons who had died unnotified.
For the sake of brevity, the action taken during the year for the prevention of consumption may
be summarised in tabular form as follows:—