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37
In April I began to receive voluntary notifications of the indoor
paupers of the Edmonton Workhouse. This arrangement was instigated by
the County Medical Officer of Health : eighteen cases were notified by him,
and two by Dr. Burton, a private practitioner.
In the absence of any compulsory system of notification, the work
done in connection with this disease has been confined to visiting the houses
where deaths have occurred and leaving a card of printed instructions and the
giving of such advice as may help to prevent further cases occurring in the
family. The disinfection of the room lately occupied by the patient is offered
and usually accepted.
The prevention of Phthisis is of special concern to Boards of Guardians,
as it is calculated that tubercle accounts for 10 per cent, of the persons driven
to seek parish relief, and the form known as " Consumption," or tubercle of
the lungs, affects adults just at the time of their highest wage-earning capacity,
and when many young children are dependent on them. In Germany,
the workmen's assurance companies find it pays them to send 9,000 consumptives
each year into sanitoria to restore them quickly to wage-earning capacity
rather than leave them to remain in sick-pay-receiving condition.
Tuberculous .Milk.—See Section " Dairies."
VENEREAL DISEASES.
Syphilis. Three deaths are recorded as due to this disease; two of
them are infants under one year old.
Gonorrhoea. Only one death from this disease is entered.
As I observed in my last Annual Report, nothing is more misleading
than the death returns of these diseasss, and it will be so, until arrangement
is made for medical practitioners to send their certificates of death direct to
the Registrar. Meanwhile, the deaths really due to these causes are to be
sought under such headings as " Locomotor Ataxy," " Stricture of Urethra,"
" General Paralysis of the Insane," etc., etc.
OTHER DISEASES.
Alcoholism. Three deaths only from this cause are recorded, one
in each Ward. The death returns of this disease, as in the instance of venereal
diseases, are most deceptive. The number (male and female) can be
considerably added to by looking back into the life - history of some of the
cases certified as dying from cirrhosis of the liver, ascites, neuritis, etc., etc.