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111
Dispensary the difficulty of getting at early cases is now being
steadily overcome, and within the next generation, if sanitary
authorities are alive to their duties, and proceed upon the right
lines, there should be witnessed a remarkable drop in the death
rate from tuberculous diseases.
The effects of the disease are apparent from childhood to
old age. First there is the "tuberculous seedling," generally a
child amongst whose immediate ancestors there is a history of
Phthisis or some other form of tubercular disease; then we have
the "anaemic, narrow chested, poorly developed youths and
maidens" just on the threshold of life; the "men and women"
who seek advice, generally on account of lack of energy, indigestion,
cough or other prodromata of tuberculous disease;
and so on until we reach the " dying consumptive " who may
be of any age up to 70 or older. In fact from the cradle to
old age the tubercle bacillus may make its presence felt to
the detriment and long suffering of those poor people whose
resistance is insufficient to stem its invidious attacks.
To the student of this disease the morbid processes in the
different stages and types of the malady have direct associations,
but in future they will cease to be treated in the same institutions
or by the same methods.
Different types must therefore be treated at different
institutions and one of the most important and powerful of
these, and to which the others must of necessity be very
intimately related, is the anti-tuberculosis dispensary. It is we
think with pardonable pride that we lay claim to the establishment
at Deptford of the first Municipal Anti-Tuberculosis
Dispensary within the County of London, and here the disease
is being systematically and energetically attacked, thus placing
this borough in the front rank of sanitary authorities who are
doing their utmost for the hygienic welfare of the people. If
carefully thought out plans and methods on a systematic basis