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A complete outfit of clothes was obtained for her from a mission,
and eventually, after much delay, and in spite of the protests of
the father, she went away for a month. The father thought she
"was all right, but a bit fanciful with her chest." The child, of
course, should have been sent away to an institution and detained
there for a prolonged period. There were no facilities for
isolating her at home, and in course of time it was extremely
probable that the other children would become infected.
The above examples show the sad wastage of human life, which
ought to be prevented in these lowly homes, a wastage which, it
is submitted, might be much diminished by a wise administration,
which deferred to some of the prejudices of the poor, by an
administration which possessed sufficient elasticity to enable it to
recognise and to propitiate the human factor and personal
equation, both always present in these difficult cases.
The Tenements.—Out of the whole number, excluding common
lodging houses, 82 were one-roomed tenements, that is to say, in
these tenements the patient and family lived and slept in one
room only, 149 were two-roomed tenements—the rest had three
to eight rooms.
Twenty-four tenements were overcrowded.
It is difficult to conceive a condition which favours the spread
of infection more than overcrowding. In phthisical families the
abatement of overcrowding is insisted upon forthwith.
Fifty-nine tenements had only one cupboard each for food,
clothes and coke. Twenty had no cupboard accommodation at all.
These are very unsatisfactory conditions for a phthisical household.
When the household utensils of the patient are kept in the
same cupboard as the other household utensils, when his clothes
are hung on the common peg, when he uses the common towel and
washing basin, the common knives, forks, spoons, cups, saucers
and glasses, when the utensils of the household are all washed
together indiscriminately, the spread of infection from the patient
to his family is greatly favoured.
When, in addition to these, the tenement is overcrowded, the
conditions for promoting the spread of the disease are as pernicious
as they possibly can be.