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117
Inspectors or Health Visitor. In the majority of cases it was only
from the death returns that information as to the existence of the
disease came to our knowledge.
The Health Committee, bearing these facts in mind, instructed
the Medical Officer of Health to ascertain and report
on the steps that were being taken by other Sanitary
Authorities throughout the United Kingdom to deal with
Tuberculosis. The report submitted to the Committee, and
ordered by them to be sent to members of the Council, will be
found in the Appendix. As a result the Committee authorised me
to supplement the measures already being taken by supplying
pocket spittoons, free of cost, to persons who were notified to us
by philanthropic bodies and from other sources, and to distribute
leaflets giving precautions to be adopted by patients and those
living with them against the spread of infection.
By order of the Council, posters drawing attention to the
dangers of promiscuous spitting in public places were also posted
throughout the Borough.
The action of the Committee has been greatly facilitated by
the issue of the new regulations made by the Local Government
Board, making the disease Compulsorily notifiable by the Medical
Officers of Poor Law Institutions and District Medical Officers in
attendance on poor persons at their homes within 48 hours of
becoming aware of the presence of the disease.
The circular letter sent by the Board to Sanitary Authorities
in connection with the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations,
1908, is as follows:—
Local Government Board,
Whitehall, S.W.,
18th December, 1908.
Sir,—I am directed by the Local Government Board to
state that they have had under consideration the desirability
of affording facilities for the extension of administrative
action for the prevention of tuberculosis, and that with this
view they have issued an Order in pursuance of Section 130
of the Public Health Act, 1875, as amended and extended