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56
Primary notifications, during the time that any large numbers
of population transfer here, are high, as, according to the requirements
of the Ministry of Health, for each transferred person suffering
from tuberculosis, it is necessary to have a Form A and to
reckon that as a primary notification. This procedure seems
unnecessary and creates an erroneous picture. It should be
sufficient that these names be added to the register, as having been
learned of by a method other than Form A. Assuming 1,000
transfers in any one year, in whom there are 8 cases of Pulmonary
Tuberculosis ; according to this ruling, 8 Forms A are necessary
in respect of these 1,000 persons, whereas actually these 8 cases
were notified in the other districts over a number of years and not
in any one vear. When these persons transfer here, there should
be added to the register 8 names in respect of those persons, but it
should not be necessary to have to include 8 primary notifications
for them as received during that one year.
Of the Pulmonary cases, 85 were of persons residing on the
Estate. 20 were of persons who transferred into the district suffering
from tuberculosis, whilst 57 apparently contracted the disease
here. Of the 55 non-pulmonary cases, 45 were of Estate residents.
Of these, 5 were transfers and 39 new cases. The notification in
23 cases was of ccrvical adenitis, hip and spine 3 cases each, knee 2,
generalised tuberculosis 2 and meningitis 4.
230 Estate houses were built in 1030 giving a new population
of 1,100. Assuming the annual transfer rate amongst the 15,000
Estate houses to be 4% the changed population numbers 3,000,
giving a total transferred population of 4,000. If the incidence of
tuberculosis amongst this body of persons is at the same rate as
that occurring in the Metropolitan population, the number of
anticipated transferred tuberculous cases would be pulmonary 34,
and non-pulmonary 14. Actually the number of transfer notifications
received were pulmonary 20 and non-pulmonary 5. The
numbers are not strictly comparable as information would be
received in 1030 of persons who transferred here before that date ;
similarly, some tuberculous patients who transferred in 1930 will
not be on the register before 1931. This correction, however,
would only lower the figures of actual cases transferred, as a larger
number of persons transferred in 1929 than did in 1930, so that
morc notifications would be received in 1930 in respect of 1929
Patients than would be received in 1931 in respcct of 1930 transfers.
No account is taken of the altered age distribution. Whilst
allowance made for this would diminish the anticipated number of
Pulmonary eases, the fact that there is the 60% increase of children
under 15 would increase, by this ratio, the number of anticipated
cases of non-pulmonary tuberculosis.