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50
As usual, poverty played a considerable part in the history
of these cases. In 125 cases, the women patients were found to
be in straitened circumstances, and in 91 cases practically destitute.
In the case of children patients inquired into, similar
destitute circumstances were found to exist, 155 being reported
to be living under poor, and 82 very poor, circumstances.
The results of these inquiries point to the powerful part
played by poverty and destitution in the dissemination of Consumption.
Under such circumstances, home isolation is difficult
or impossible. In 110 of the children's cases investigated in
Battersea during the year, the patients were found to be sleeping
in the same bed as their parents or other children. The same
unsatisfactory conditions as regards isolation were observable
amongst the women patients, in 88 cases the isolation of the
patient being found to be very unsatisfactory.
It is not difficult, therefore, to appreciate the ease with
which this disease is spread in poor and congested districts where
the housing accommodation is cramped and otherwise insanitary.
Frequently, cases of Tuberculosis have been found occupying
underground rooms where the lighting and ventilation, &c., are,
as a rule, unsatisfactory. When to these evils is added the
absence or scarcity of suitable and nutritious food, Consumption
readily finds its victims, a fact the more regrettable when it is
remembered that it is a disease known to be largely preventable.
If the disease is to be stamped out effectually, it will only be
accomplished by raising the standard of living amongst the class
of our population most susceptible to attack.
Consumption is not usually a highly infectious disease. It
is only where the conditions favour its spread, e.g., bad housing,
insufficient food, drink, &c., that its infectious nature becomes
formidable.
Of the women patients, 104 are insured persons under the
National Insurance Act; 36 of these have received sanatorium
benefit during the year, and 19 uninsured patients also received
sanatorium treatment.
The number of children notified as suffering from Tuberculosis,
and known to have been sent into the country during
1913, is 73. Of these, 33 have been or are being treated at
Carshalton. The remainder have been sent away by philanthropic
agencies, such as the Invalid Children's Aid Association.
One of the Health Visitors (Miss Ross Brown), in her report
to me states that " Effective work is much hindered through
lack of power to enforce the removal of the most advanced cases,
where the patient is an undoubted source of danger to all the