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Hospital for Diseases of the Chest in the City Road with a view to the settlement
of a provisional scheme for the tuberculosis department of the hospital to be the
tuberculosis dispensary for the Borough. These were brought to a successful
conclusion and a provisional agreement sanctioned by the Local Government
Board was entered into between the Borough and the hospital authorities whereby
a tuberculosis dispensary for the Borough under a committee of management of
representatives of the Borough Council and the hospital was established in
connection with the out-patient department of the hospital. Particulars as to the
work of the dispensary during the year are contained in the Report of Dr. Lytton
Maitland, the Tuberculosis officer, which is appended (page 86). Some 413 persons
attended the dispensary during the year, making 2,948 attendances, and
1,205 visits were made to the homes of patients by the Tuberculosis officer
and the dispensary nurse in connection with the hygienic conditions of the
dwellings, the discovery of contact cases, and for advice and instruction as to
the precautionary measures to be taken in the homes for the prevention of the
disease. In a number of instances insanitary conditions in the homes of phthisical
patients were reported to the health department by the Tuberculosis officer,
and dealt with.
OPHTHALMIA NEONATORUM.
The cases notified numbered 32 as compared with 17 in 1912 and 32 in 1911.
The notifications were at the rate of 9.4 per 1,000 births as compared with 4.8 for
1912 and 9.1 for 1911. Of the cases notified 22 were certified by medical
practitioners. The cases were inquired into by the Health Visitors and are
referred to in their reports (Appendix, pp. 96 and 100), some 73 visits being made
in connection with them. Eight of the cases were severe and one was admitted
into hospital. All recovered satisfactorily without so far as is known the sight
being in any case injured. The cases certified in London during the year
numbered 641, the rate being 5.7 per 1,000 births.
EPIDEMIC CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS.
Four cases were certified with three deaths. All were removed to hospital.
One of the deaths was of an infant under 12 months, one of a child aged
13 months and the third of a child aged four years. In none of the cases was the
meningococcus of cerebro-spinal fever found. Of the deaths one was certified as
posterior basic meningitis, one as being acute purulent meningitis, and the third as
tuberculous meningitis. There were also 17 deaths attributed to meningitis, 12 of
which were of children under five years, but so far as could be ascertained there
was no reason for concluding that any of these were the result of epidemic
cerebro-spinal meningitis. The cases certified in the metropolis numbered 92 with
six deaths, and some 380 deaths in London were attributed to meningitis,