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In 1901 certain communications on the prevention of consumption addressed to the Council
were referred by the Public Health Committee to a Sub-committee, whose report, unanimously
adopted by the Committee and by the Council, was printed in my annual report for that year
(page 39).
The Committee reported the resolutions of the Congress on Tuberculosis, held in
1901, which recommended :—
(1) Voluntary notification of cases of consumption attended with tuberculous expectoration—
the main agent for the conveyance of tuberculosis from man to man;
(2) The supply to consumptives, by hospitals and dispensaries, of pocket spittoons, with a
view to the suppression of the dangerous habit of indiscriminate spitting;
(3) The supply to consumptives, by these institutions, of printed instructions with regard to
the prevention of consumption.
(4) The provision of sanatoria as an indispensable part of the measures necessary for the
nution of tuberculosis; and
(5) The provision of anti-tubercular dispensaries, as the best means of checking tubercular
disease among the industrial and indigent classes.
Premising that time would be required for giving effect to the recommendations, the
Committee, as regarded action by the Council, recommended:—
1. (a) The adoption of a system of voluntary notification by medical men of cases of
tion attended with tuberculous expectoration.
(6) Payment to medical men of the customary fee for notification of such cases; and
(c) An arrangement for bacteriological examination of expectoration suspected to be tuberculous.
2. The further circulation of the leaflet on " The Prevention of Consumption." (See Minutes
of the late Vestry, June 14th, 1899, page 206.)
3. (a) The appointment of an assistant disinfector; and
(6) Disinfection of houses after the occurrence of fatal cases of consumption, and after the
removal of consumptives.
4. An appeal to the Local Government Board to give effect to the opinion of the Conference
of Poor Law Authorities (above cited).
The report concluded by stating, as "evidence of the importance of the subject, that in
Kensington consumption alone—apart from all other diseases of the tubercular class—destroys,
year by year, very many more lives than small-pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and 'fever' combined;"
the fact being that in the three years 1898-1900 the deaths from these diseases aggregated 183,
only whereas the deaths from consumption were 210 in 1900 alone.
The Committee's report having been unanimously adopted by the Council, November 13th,
1901, a letter was addressed to the Local Government Board urging the desirability of steps being
taken for giving effect to the resolution of the Conference of Poor Law Authorities, but nothing
more than a formal acknowledgment was received.
Steps were taken to give effect to a scheme of voluntary notification of Phthisis, which came
into operation on January 1st, 1902. Memoranda on the "Cause and Prevention of Consumption"
and "Precautions for Consumptive Persons" were prepared for the information and guidance of
sufferers; and, together with the Council's leaflet on "The Prevention of Consumption," the
National Association's leaflets on "Ventilation" and "Disinfection" have been given to the
consumptive person, or the head of the family, in every case visited by the lady inspectors, to whom
this duty was entrusted. Disinfection of rooms, offered always after a change of residence, or death,
of a consumptive person, has been generally accepted.
Action by Sanitary Authorities.—In the eleventh report, 1902 (November 6th, page 202),
reference was made to the proceedings of the Bermondsey Borough Council, who in April had
addressed a letter to the Asylums Board requesting them to provide Sanatoria.* An epitome of
the replies to a communication sent to the other Borough Councils, inviting them to make similar
representations to the Managers, and to the Local Government Board, was appended to the letter.
* Similar communications were addressed to the Managers by the Chelsea, Holborn, and Poplar Boards of Guardians.