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4
Report on
TUBERCULOSIS AND ITS PREVENTION.
(Adopted by the Vestry, December 8th, 1898.)
Tuberculosis (including consumption) is now a recognised
infectious disease, due to the entrance into the body from
without of a germ (the Tubercle Bacillus), and is acquired
either directly from man to man, or indirectly
through food (milk and meat). It causes more deaths and
more permanent ill-health than all the other infectious
diseases put together—over 70,000 persons dying annually
in Great Britain alone (and over 600 in Lambeth Parish);
whilst very many more are permanently maimed or injured,
and their healths ruined thereby.
The corrected death-rate from Phthisis in London is 2
per 1,000 of the population; whilst in Lambeth the deathrate
from Phthisis is 1.9 per 1,000, and the death-rate from
Tubercular diseases generally 2.7 per 1,000, as compared
with 3T from the whole of the principal zymotic diseases
together. The above rates refer to the decennium 18811890
(the last corrected rates issued by the RegistrarGeneral).
To make the matter clearer, I may mention that during
the last four years, 1894-1897, there have been registered
in Lambeth 2,680 deaths from Tuberculosis, and of these
1,913 were certified as being due to Phthisis or Consumption.
Separated into Districts, it appears that the four
Inner Wards have suffered more severely than the four
Outer Wards (i.e., half as much again), whilst of the four
Inner Wards, Waterloo 1st and Waterloo 2nd are the
worst—the death-rate from Tuberculosis being 14.8 and
12.9 respectively. The Workhouse helps to increase the
rate in Lambeth Church 2nd, whilst Norwood and Brixton
suffer the least of all Districts in Lambeth, viz., 5.3 and
7.5 per 1000 respectively, as the following table shows:—