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selling foodstuffs in the street, 3 were washers-up in coffee-shops,
one was a coffee-shop proprietor, 6 were domestic servants, 2 were
general dealers and kept small shops, 2 were bakers, 1 was a
fish salesman, while the rest were a waiter, butcher, grocer, fruitpacker,
dining-room proprietor, kitchen porter, children's nurse,
and a housekeeper respectively.
It is deplorable to realise that a consumptive may handle food
in a public place, and more distressing still to know that he may
take a large part in its preparation. All the foregoing may
possibly be persons capable of freely spreading the disease. When
a mother is consumptive and still attends to her household duties
all the rest of the family stand in peril.
Domestic servants, bakers, butchers, and all the persons
pursuing the callings given above, if attacked by phthisis should
on no account be allowed to handle the food of others, or to be
employed in its production or manipulation.
2. Attended by poverty and exposure.—Twenty-six
patients were general labourers, 16 were carmen, 1 was an
occasional cart minder attached to a public-house "pitch," 1
was an organ-grinder, 2 were street flower-sellers.
The general labourers were all in casual employment and led a
precarious hand to mouth existence.
Most of the carmen were out of work through illness.
The rest were all poor.
It is reasonable to assume that in these cases the poverty,
the lack of employment, and the exposure had in some instances
acted as predisposing causes leading to the successful implantation
and growth of the tubercle germ.
People who are robust and in rude health are able to fend off
disease with little effort, the poor, badly fed and clothed and
exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, easily succumb.