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262
1902]
THE VOLUNTARY NOTIFICATION OF PULMONARY
TUBERCULOSIS OH CONSUMPTION.
To the Chairman and Members of the Public Health Committee.
Gentlemen,
If, even two years ago, I had had to advocate the voluntary notification
of Pulmonary Phthisis, I would have felt compelled to enter into a long
disquisition on the infectious nature of the disease; how it was communicated
from individual to individual by means of sputa; how dust was a potent
factor in its spread; how occupation and personal habit had an important
bearing in its propagation, and how food, especially milk, was not without its
influence, and also to show that heredity was only a very small factor in its
causation.
Happily this is no longer necessary, for since the British Congress on
Tuberculosis was held in London, there is hardly a person engaged in the
Public Health administration of the Kingdom, especially of the Urban
Districts, who is not well acquainted with the chief facts about this disease.
•
That Conference focussed attention on Consumption in a manner which
had never before been equalled with respect to any disease.
To-day public bodies and private agencies are at work throughout the
civilised world endeavouring to prevent and cure it. The movement is
extending by leaps and bounds: and rightly so, for consumption is the most
terrible destroyer of lives with which civilization has to contend.
In this country a feeling in favour of its Voluntary Notification is growing
fast, and consequently the roll of Sanitary Authorities who have adopted this
measure is daily lengthening.