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35
As I have just mentioned, the notification of consumption is now compulsory in New York,
and it is also compulsory in Norway and Saxony, and is reported to be working satisfactorily.
A Bill asking for compulsory notification is about to be brought before the Prussian Diet.
The principal advantages to be gained from notification are :—
1. To advise the patient as to the conditions which would tend to promote recovery.
2. To see that the patient's home and workplace are in a satisfactory sanitary condition.
3. To advise other occupants of the house or workshop as to the precautions they should
take to prevent their becoming tuberculous.
4. To disinfect the room and clothing of the patient when necessary.
5. To give special warning respecting spitting and the disinfection of sputum.
As the question has been raised whether this Council has the power to pay fees for the
voluntary notification of consumption, I may inform the Council that the question was raised by
the Borough of Southwark, and that the Town Clerk of that Council received a reply from the
Local Government Board, dated the 31st October, ] 901, stating " that the Council of the Borough
"of Southwark have power, without any sanction on the part of the Board, to pay a reasonable
"fee to Medical Practitioners for the voluntary notification of phthisis occurring in their respective
" practices."
In view of this statement by the Local Government Board it would appear that the
Council would be justified in paying reasonable fees to medical practitioners for the voluntary
notification of cases of phthisis occurring in the Borough.
If the Council agree to pay such fees it would be safe to prescribe the same fee as that
prescribed by the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, Section 55 (3), for each certificate of a
notifiable infectious disease—viz., half-a-crown if the case occurs in the medical practitioner's
private practice, and one shilling if the case occurs in his practice as Medical Officer of any
public body or institution.
disinfection.
Many experiments have proved that the dust of rooms in which a consumptive patient has
been living is generally infected with the germs of tuberculosis; hence the necessity for the
periodical disinfection of the rooms occupied by the patient and his clothing and other articles.
When a consumptive removes to a Sanatorium, hospital, or other premises, or dies, the room
ought to be thoroughly disinfected as after other infectious diseases.
On the receipt of information in the death returns of a death from consumption, the
premises are visited and disinfected if the consent for this can be obtained. This Council
recently made arrangements with the district Registrars for a copy of the return of the death of a
consumptive to be sent to me as soon as the death has been registered.
bacteriological examination of sputum.
As the sputum or expectoration of a consumptive often contains large numbers of the
germs of tuberculosis before a certain diagnosis can be made by other methods and measures for
prevention and cure can be more successfully carried out in the early stages ol the disease it is
advisable that medical practitioners attending patients in the Borough should have facilities for
this bacteriological examination given them by the Council, as is already done for doubtful cases
of diphtheria and typhoid fever.