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88
Sixty were school children. The schools chiefly affected were
the following:—Hugh Myddelton (7), Bath Street (6), Moreland
Street (6), Tavistock Place Special School (6), Compton Street (4),
and St. Luke's Parochial School 3 cases. Of the whole number,
64 were considered to be Finsbury cases by residence and infection,
23 Finsbury cases by infection, 4 Finsbury cases by residence, and
the rest, 46 in number, were not Finsbury cases. These last were
persons who were affected with tuberculosis before coming into the
Borough, and had chiefly moved into Finsbury so as to be near
the hospitals to obtain free treatment.
The patients came mostly from the following streets:—Bastwick
Street (5), Northampton Buildings (5), Roscoe Street (4), Compton
Buildings (4), Galway Street (4), Chadworth Buildings (4), St.
Helena Street (3), Guinness Buildings (3), and Bartholomew's
Buildings 3 cases.
The number included 22 insured persons and 95 dependants.
Special enquiry was made as to the existence of other suspected
cases of tuberculosis in the family of the patient and in the other
tenements in the house. As a result, 19 suspected cases were
found and put in the way of obtaining medical advice and treatment.
Fifteen of the patients lived and slept with their families
in one room. Twelve of the tenements were overcrowded. The
close contacts in the same families included 314 adults and children
above school age, and 304 other children.
The kitchen was used for living and sleeping in 73 instances.
Twenty-one families were living under conditions of great poverty.
In 34 cases the mother was the chief or only wage earner.
The deaths included 33 from tuberculous meningitis—
(Clerkenwell 23, and St. Luke's 10), and 30 from other forms of
tuberculosis (Clerkenwell 16, and St. Luke's 14).
The Finsbury death rate for all forms of tuberculosis in 1913 was
2.52 per 1,000—the corresponding rate for England and Wales in
1912 was 1.366. The death rate in Finsbury was nearly twice the
death rate in the country taken as a whole.