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Phthisicorum cadavera fugi adolescens, fugio etiavi senex.
—Morgagni.
The Voluntary Notification of Pulmonary
Tuberculosis or Consumption.
To the Chairman and Members of the Public Health Committee.
Gentlemen.
RETROSPECTIVE.
It is now nearly two years ago since I presented a report on this subject
to your predecessors, which after careful and anxious consideration they
adopted; and about which on December 22, 1902, they reported to the
Council as follows :—
" We have had under consideration a very important and
exhaustive report from the Medical Officer of Health on the voluntary
notification of pulmonary tuberculosis or consumption, a copy of
which we have directed to be forwarded to each member of the
Council. Having regard to the now known infectious nature of
phthisis, and to the sympathetic and encouraging replies which have
been received by the Medical Officer of Health in response to a letter
addressed to the members of the medical profession in the borough
asking whether they would be prepared to notify this disease, we are
of opinion that every means tending to prevent the spread of this
scourge should be adopted. We, therefore, recommend that the
voluntary notification of pulmonary tuberculosis or consumption be
adopted in this borough, and that it be referred to us to make the
necessary arrangements for carrying this resolution into effect."
This recommendation led to a long discussion with the result that the
proposal was rejected on a division by 22 votes to 14. In the course of the
debate it was alleged inter alia by various speakers :—
1. That voluntary notification of phthisis is useless.
2. That it is a question that is not ripe enough for local bodies to deal
with,