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phthisis or consumption.
The number of deaths from Phthisis daring the year 1902 was 182, equivalent to a
death-rate of 3.06 per 1,000. Of these 93 belonged to Bloomsbury and St. Giles, or a death rate
of 2.92 per 1,000, and 89 to the Holborn Sub-district, or a rate of 3.19 per 1,000.
The corresponding rate for London was 1.60.
The number of deaths from other tubercular diseases was 31; of these, 11 belonged to
Bloomsbury and St. Giles, and 20 to the Holborn Sub-district.
prevention of consumption.
In March, 1901, in a Report on this subject I advised the voluntary notification of the
disease, disinfection of rooms, provision of sanatoria for the open air treatment of consumption,
bacteriological examination of sputum in doubtful cases, and the instruction of the public in
precautions to be taken. At the same time a leaflet, which was approved by the Public Health
Committee, was distributed in the Borough. This Report was again considered after the
meetings of the British Congress on Tuberculosis in July, 1901, but no further action was taken.
The subject was again carefully considered by the Public Health Committee and the Council this
March (1903) and has been postponed for further consideration. I will therefore include the
further Report on the subject in this Annual Report in order that every Member of the Council
may have a printed copy.
It is now well-known that consumption is an infectious disease and that the terrible waste
of life caused by it and the distress, moral and material, which, it involves is preventable.
In the Holborn Borough, as in other districts of a similar character, the death-rate from
consumption is very high. I have obtained from the Registrar-General's Department the
following statistics for the eight years 1894 to 1901 inclusive. I tried to get them for the ten
years, but was informed that the Holborn figures for the years 1892 and 1893 were not available.
Prior to 1901 the figures are for the combined areas of the St. Giles and Holborn District