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49
patients occupied the Council's beds for periods ranging
from five weeks to six months.
85 persons notified as tuberculous received treatment
in Sanatoria as patients of the London Insurance
Committee, their average stay in Sanatoria being eleven
weeks. Eighteen insured persons were sent by the
Committee to Brompton Hospital and fourteen to other
hospitals, the average duration of their treatment as
in-patients being ten weeks. Of the patients treated at
the Dispensary 45 uninsured were sent to Sanatoria or
Homes through the efforts of the Dispensary Care
Committee, who co-operate with the Charity Organization
Society, the Invalid Children's Aid Society, and others.
After Care.
Under the Tuberculosis Regulations, 1912, the
discharge of tuberculous patients from Sanatoria and
Poor-law Institutions is notified to the Medical Officer
of Health, though for some obscure reason the notification
of their discharges from hospital is not required.
The patients discharged are visited by the Dispensary
nurses and efforts are made to secure the continuance of
suitable treatment.
A serious problem is the difficulty experienced in
finding light and healthy work for discharged patients,
partly due to the exaggerated fear of infection from
cases of pulmonary tuberculosis now entertained by the
public.
In view of this the Royal College of Physicians, with
the hope of rendering assistance to those who have
administrative duties in connection with the disease,
have recently issued the following statement:—
THE INFECTIVITY OF TUBERCULOSIS.
1. Tuberculosis is an acquired disease, but certain constitutional
types may be inherited which render the patient
specially susceptible to infection and there is reason to think that
such susceptibility is an inherited character.
2. The infective agent is the tubercle bacillus. This may
be contained in the various discharges and excreta of the patient.