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this important question. The remedies he advocated were attention
to meat and milk supplies; the provision for the notification and
isolation of consumptive persons being regarded as premature, at all
events at present.
It will be interesting to notice Bow's record in this important
particular. During the year there were 81 deaths from phthisis;
3 occurred in infants, 4 in children under 5, 3 in children under 15,
13 in persons under 25, and 56 in persons under 65, and 2 in persons
over that age.
The death rate from the disease for the year was 1 2 per 1000.
Last year the deaths numbered 101 from this cause.
No doubt a good deal might be done by issuing directions for
general use of affected persons, and this is a direction in which the
sanitary authority might work in with advantage. But in regard to the
more immediate preventive measures, such as notification and
isolation, I am of opinion that it is, in the present state of knowledge
on the subject, too early to settle a definite policy.
Of course, the strictest attention should be given to the meat and
milk supplies, but these are matters which have always engaged the
sanitary staff in Bow, sometimes with markedly good results.
Considering that the subject of advance during the year which has
obtained most attention has been the notification, treatment by isolation
in open air of consumption, slight amplification seems desirable. As
a sanitary authority we are chiefly, if not wholly, concerned with the
notification and isolation, though perhaps under the term "isolation"
treatment may have to be considered.
What were the effects of notification as at present ordered by the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891:—