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65
I must confess to a feeling of disappointment upon reviewing last
year's result of Voluntary Notification. Only a small number out of
a total of possibly hundreds of cases which must have come under the
notice of the medical profession and others in the Borough were
notified. Thus, while the number of notified cases was only 29, the
deaths alone from the disease were 73.
Of the 29 notifications received, 14, or 48 per cent., were received
from the Workhouse; doubtless a large proportion of the patients
admitted to the Infirmary were seen by some one prior to admission,
who for some reason failed to notify us of the case. In only one instance,
however, had the case been previously notified.
I am well aware, from actual experience, of the difficulties of
obtaining the sufferers' consent to notification even among the poorer
class ; the extent of such difficulties is reflected in the fact that the
Authorities at the Mount Vernon Hospital for Consumption when
approached on this subject, demurred to the Council's proposals that
they should notify the cases which came under their care, and up to the
present we have failed to secure the co-operation of this important
Institution.