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Prevention and Treatment of Tuberculosis.
The centre of the anti-tuberculosis work in the Borough is the
Tuberculosis Clinic, and here the work is co-ordinated with that of all
the agencies dealing with the prevention and treatment of the disease
such as the Health and Pensions Ministries, the London County
Council, the Poor Law Authorities, the hospitals, the medical practitioners,
and the various societies engaged in anti-tuberculosis and
social welfare work. With the Clinic staff and the medical practitioners
rests the major portion of the responsibility for the success of the work,
as they must discover the disease and deal with it at the source of
infection. Between the two units the closest co-operation is necessary.
The essential functions of the Tuberculosis Clinic are :—
(1) Detection of cases of Tuberculosis.
(2) Prevention of the spread of infection.
(3) The arrangement of treatment, and the treatment of a certain
number of cases.
Detection of Cases. During the year, 761 people presented themselves
for the first time at the Clinic, which with 25 cases under
observation for diagnosis from the previous year made a total of 786
cases for diagnosis. Of these, 108 were found to be suffering from
Pulmonary Tuberculosis, and 34 from other forms of Tuberculosis. It
is to be regretted that many cases still present themselves at the Clinic
for the first time in whom the disease is well established and the hope
of permanent arrest of the disease is very slender. In the great
majority of these cases, this state of things has been found due to the
carelessness of the patient who has deferred seeking proper medical
advice until the symptoms have become very severe or the disease has
interfered with working capacity.
Every effort is made by consultation and co-operation with the local
practitioners to encourage them to avail themselves of the facilities for
diagnosis which the Clinic offers, and on the whole these are freely used.
Of the 761 new cases during the year, 207 were sent by the local
practitioners, 38 were referred by hospitals, 23 were referred by school
medical officers, 212 attended to seek advice on their own initiative, and
281 (mainly contacts) on the advice of the Clinic staff.
The examination and re-examination of those in contact with
positive cases is an important part of the work which everything is done