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REPORT OF THE TUBERCULOSIS MEDICAL OFFICER
FOR THE YEAR 1922.
The Notification of Tuberculosis in 1922.
Notification is the first essential in a Tuberculosis scheme.
If notification is strictly carried out the officers of the local authority
are enabled to deal with questions of infection and with conditions
favouring infection. They are enabled to point out in each home
where there is a case of tuberculosis what can be done to strengthen
the resistance to infection. Further, the provision of sufficient
and opportune means of treatment can be properly considered.
We do not know fully why the tubercle bacillus produces disease
in some and not in others, but we know that the disease it PRDUCES
is COMMUNICABLE. We know how the bacilli escape from
the diseased organs of man and animals. We know we can confine
the organisms after their escape and then kill them. We know
if this is not done that they may enter another human host and reproduce
the disease. We know that a consumptive ignorant or
careless of the way in which his cough should be controlled, and his
sputum disposed of, is a menace, and we know that we can do much
to make each intelligent and conscientious case of tuberculosis fairly
harmless to his family and to others. For these reasons, and in
order that no single case of the disease may remain in our community
uncared for, we press for full observance of the Notification Act.
It cannot be affirmed that the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations,
1912, have failed to accomplish what was anticipated, because
notification has not been fully carried out. We do not know the
full extent of the failure to notify. We have reason to believe,
from the information received from the certificates of death, that
the defect is large. From a study of partial statistics—for we do
not know the number of living cases of un-notified tuberculosis—
the calculation is that every four years the number of un-notified
cases of tuberculosis discovered in Camberwell exceeds the number
of deaths from that disease in one year in the Borough.
In 1922, 341 certificates in which the primary cause of death was
tuberculosis were returned in Camberwell and 19 certificates in
which tuberculosis was stated to be a contributory cause of death.
83 of these cases were not notified before death. 24 cases were
notified for the first time within a week of death. 47 cases were
notified for the first time within a month of death. Only 140 cases
were notified more than 6 months before death. Of 83 cases not
notified before death, in 55 cases the death certificates were returned
by institutions and in 28 cases by local practitioners.
We have pointed out the opportunities opened up by notification
It must be added that the act of notification is only a means
to an end. Unless notification is followed up by suitable measures
its value is a negative one.