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29
Opposite will be found a complete chart of the deaths from zymotic
diseases, including influenza, viz. : small-pox, diphtheria,
CHARTS.
typhoid fever, puerperal fever, diarrhoea, cholera, and
erysipelas.
I have also prepared the accompanying chart with a view of
showing the relation which existed during the year
between weather and disease, both in the whole Metropolis
and Bow.
WEATHER AND
DISEASE
CHART.
The lines in the chart indicate the rise and fall of the total and
zymotic death rates.
consumption of the lungs known medically as phthisis.
Great attention has been paid by the medical profession generally
and the Local Government Board to the incidence of
tuberculosis or phthisis. Recent discoveries led to the
explosion of the former view that phthisis was due only to the predisposing
cause of heredity. The tubercle bacillus has been found
and cultivated, and although predisposition still has the greatest
effect in determining whether or not a person is likely to or does
acquire tuberculosis, still there is not the slightest doubt that the
disease is infectious.
PHTHISIS.
This has led to a revolution in medical thought and treatment,
and sanitary authorities are properly turning their attention to the
question of preventing the spread of infection by those suffering
from the disease among the healthy. A National Society for the
Prevention of the Spread of Consumption has been formed, and
Royal support has led to a movement that may be described as
national.
The Harben lectures by Sir Richard Thorne Thorne, the Medical
Officer of Health to the Local Government Board, were devoted to