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46
In addition to the above, forty cases were notified from
Brompton, three from Margaret Street Hospital (six of
these being also notified under the Poor Law Tuberculosis
regulations), and eighteen cases were voluntarily notified by
private medical practitioners.
Among the hospital cases there were three and among the
private cases eight deaths, making a total of eighty-two deaths
out of 334 notified cases, so assuming the proportion of deaths
to cases to be the same in unnotified as in notified cases,
there are among the residents in Fulham 482 unnotified
cases of recognisable tuberculosis of the lungs.
Notification of the Poor Law cases enables the Sanitary
Authority to cleanse and disinfect, after their removal, the
rooms that have been occupied by tuberculous patients, and
by special instructions regarding the conditions under which
tuberculosis is transmissible to lessen the risk of the patient
infecting other members of his family or his fellow workers,
and may also lead to the recognition of cases of incipient
phthisis in the household, but it should be supplemented
by other measures. The patients discharged from the Infirmary
are found as a rule to have derived benefit from the
treatment, but the home conditions to which they return are
generally thoroughly unsatisfactory, as, when the patient is
the breadwinner, the poverty which results from his diminished
earning capacity, renders it impossible for him to obtain
even sufficient nourishment, let alone proper housing accommodation,
and he goes steadily down hill until again compelled
to go into the Infirmary, nor on visiting these cases do we feel
that we are being very helpful, when to a man who really wants
good food, we offer on behalf of the Sanitary Authority a
spitting flask and some paper handkerchiefs. Sanatorium
treatment is the most promising method of combating the
evil, having a powerful educational as well as, in suitable
cases, some curative influence, and looking at the enormous
loss entailed on the community by consumption, since,
besides the loss of earnings, it is estimated that one-