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28
The materials accumulated in the course of investigation proved that the
administrative measures do avert the subsequent occurrence of phthisical cases
in a house infected with tuberculosis. Dr. Niven, the Medical Officer of Health
of that City, declares that although "only about one.third of all the cases are
known and dealt with, yet that these cases occur in such homes as render them
peculiarly dangerous, and the operations are, therefore, doing a maximum of
good."
The investigations in Manchester have also clearly demonstrated that
additional attention is required in public houses and other places where
spitting is practised, among which may be instanced 'buses, trains, trams,
places of amusement, etc.
The inquiries, too, elicited the fact that in numerous cases the probable
source of the infection was a consumptive relative. These relatives were of all
degrees of kinship as is shown in the table on opposite page.
No information was available for 56 of these cases, while double sources of
infection were noticed in 89 instances.
Would it be too much to suppose that many of these attacks would
never have occurred if the patients had been careful in their habits; had
adopted the simple precaution of destroying their sputum, or at least of
rendering it innocuous before it dried, pulverized, and mixed with the household
dust ?
As bearing on this subject, I notice in "a paper on " The Prevention of
Consumption," issued by the Board of Health of Maine, U.S., this phrase: —
" Investigation has proved that the careless consumptive patient is a focus of
infection, and a danger to all persons who come in much proximity to him."
It is because of this carelessness, so often caused through ignorance, that he
requires instruction.
Dr. Cornet, Dr. Coates and others have shown the danger of spitting in
workshops, railway carriages, waiting rooms, tram cars, theatres, music hallsclubs
and public houses.