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29
It must be remembered that tuberculosis causes more deaths
and more permanent ill-health than all the other infectious
diseases put together, over 600 dying annually in Lambeth, whilst
very many more are permanently maimed or injured, and their
health ruined thereby.
The cost of such voluntary notification can only be approximated.
Taking an average of 600 cases of consumption that
prove fatal annually in Lambeth Borough, and remembering that
such cases are, as a rule, accompanied with dangerous tuberculous
expectoration during the last 12 months of the patients'
lives, it may be roughly assumed that an average of 600 is the
maximum number of notifications that could be received in one
year, i.e., at 2s. 6d. per notification, £75, or allowing for duplicate
or triplicate notifications, ,£100. I am assuming that all
the medical men in Lambeth will fall in with this voluntary
or optional notification, but, probably, the expenses will be at
least 50 per cent. less. In any case, any information relating to
a case of consumption with tubercular expectoration, 12 months
before it proves fatal, will be invaluable. Taking the full
amount, the expense would be more than justified, even if only
a few cases of consumption or phthisis were thereby prevented.
January 13th, 1902.
Joseph Priestley.