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49
Treatment—
Domiciliary.—35 by private doctor, 9 by panel doctor,
68 by out-patient department of hospitals, 15
transferred to Tuberculosis Dispensary.
Institutional.—72 receiving hospital, sanatorium, or
other form of institutional treatment.
Financial Circumstances of Patients.—30 good, 66 fair,
100 bad.
Occupation—
Infants (1 to 5 years) 29
School children (5 to 15 years) 81
Clerks 13
Domestic workers (cooks, charwomen, domestic
servants, caretakers, etc.) 9
Factory hands (including laundry workers)10
Housewives 38
Shop assistants and workers (including machinists,
dressmakers, milliners, etc.) 11
No occupation 5
196
The statistics shown in this annual return of the investigations
into the incidence of tuberculosis amongst non-dispensary
cases of women and children are interesting and instructive,
and are probably to be regarded as being fairly typical of a
working-class area.
The number of cases found dead on first visit is an unsatisfactory
feature not only of this return, but of the whole of
the tuberculosis statistics of the Borough for the year. The delay
or, in some cases, total neglect in notifying cases of tuberculosis
defeats the object for which notification is intended,
and the extent to which this neglect of their obligation under
the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, by medical
practitioners prevails, is considerable, and seriously affects the
preventive measures undertaken by the Council for checking
the spread of infection. It would be of material assistance to
the Medical Officer of Health if prompt notification of tuberculosis
were, as required by the Regulations, sent in; and now
that facilities for the diagnosis of difficult or doubtful cases
are at the disposal of all medical practitioners practising in the
district, there is no excuse for failure to notify, or delay in
notifying, their cases to the Medical Officer of Health.