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172
There is considerable Tuberculosis in the Borough, and it is widespread
and not by any means confined to the poorer and overcrowded
districts, though on the other hand it is a neighbourhood to which many
drift when ill and in failing circumstances who formerly lived in other
localities—a place where common lodging houses, shelters, small tenements
and cheap rooms offer a temporary refuge for the wandering
consumptive who leaves a trail of infection behind him.
There is no case of consumption that is not directly or indirectly
contracted from a previous case, and patients are constantly warned that
just as they have contracted the disease through the carelessness of a
previous sufferer, so they, in turn, if not observant of due precautions will
infect others.
Occupation does not play a great part in the disease in Southwark,
which is a district of varied industries, but if anything the printing tradeis
the local work which supplies the most cases, partly because it is well
known as a business unfavourable to those of consumptive tendency, and
also because the number of firms engaged in this industry is large.