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30
From careful and frequent revisions of the Registers it is
estimated that the number of Tuberculous persons residing in the
Borough at the close of 1923 amounted to 824 as follows :
Men. Women. Children. Total.
Pulmonary Tuberculosis 214 217 129 560
Non-pulmonary 20 33 211 264
The patients mentioned in last year's Report as having been
struck off the Register after five or more years of apparent good
health, have been under supervision during the year and have
continued well.
Late Notification and Non-notification: Of the total deaths
from Pulmonary Tuberculosis in 87 per cent of the cases, notification
had previously been made under the Regulations, whilst in the
remaining 13 per cent, it had not. This latter figure is an improvement
on the previous year when it was 17 per cent, and a very great
improvement on 1921 when the non-notified cases reached 26 per
cent.
At the beginning of the year a circular was addressed to each
medical practitioner in the Borough asking him to notify every
case he was called upon to attend, in order that no case should
escape Notification on the assumption that it had already been
notified by another practitioner. The immediate result was a crop
of Re-notifications showing on the one hand how Consumptive
patients float about from doctor to doctor, but on the other hand
it has resulted in a great reduction of the non-notified cases. It is
proposed to continue the experiment and at the same time to carry
on the usual practice of sending reminders to both Medical men
and Institutions upon failure to notify. Of the 15 cases mentioned
in the Table below, who died before notification was received,
the certifying authority in 2 cases was the Coroner: in 4 cases Institutions
and in 9 instances General Practitioners. As far as could be
ascertained in 10 of these cases the average duration of illness was
8-5 months.