London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Kensington 1913
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington Borough]
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card representing a house. On 1,439 cards the name of one consumptive patient only had been
entered; 450 cards bore the names of two or more consumptive patients. In analysing these 456
cards, 27 were rejected as containing insufficient information for the purpose of the analysis, and
8 as representing Common Lodging Houses which are not comparable to the other houses in the
register. The number of consumptive persons who have resided in each house either before or
during their illness is shown in the following Table:—
Number of Notified Consumptives.
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total.2 to 8 1 Grand Total.
Houses where information 20 3 4 0 0 0 0 27 0 27
was insufficient
Common Lodging Houses 2 1 2 0 1 0 2 8 0 8
All other Houses 296 82 26 12 3 2 0 421 1431 1852
Grand Totals 318 86 32 12 4 2 2 456 1431 1887
In the next Table the circumstances are tabulated, which in 421 instances brought two or more consumptives either before or during their illness to reside under the same roof.
| Number of Notified Consumptives per House. | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Total. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Circumstances of Association. | Number of Houses. | ||||||
| 1. Membership of same family alone | 153 | 29 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 192 |
| 2 Family and chance association | — | 23 | 11 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 41 |
| 3. Chance association alone | 74 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 86 |
| 4. Infection from another family in same house or "House Infection" alone | 69 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 88 |
| 5. House infection and chance association | 0 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 14 |
| 4 & 5. Total house infections | 69 | 19 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 102 |
| 2, 3 & 5. Total chance associations | 74 | 38 | 17 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 141 |
| 1 to 5. Total number of houses | 296 | 82 | 20 | 12 | 3 | 421 | |
Among many points of interest in the above Table particular attention may be drawn to the
figure which shows that in 141 instances the residence of two or more consumptives in the same
house either before or after the onset of their illness, was due, not to the operation of cause and
effect, but to nothing more than chance association; as for instance when two consumptives come
to the same house who have both developed the disease before leaving their previous addresses.
Under these circumstances it will be understood that in the 102 cases where the dates of onset and
residence rendered house infection possible, the facts might with equal probability be explained by
the chance association, which is known to have been the sole cause of a much larger number of
examples of multiple invasion.
In 84 cases of non-pulmonary tuberculosis a history was obtained of the feeding of the patient
in infancy. Twenty-seven, or 32 per cent. of the patients had been fed on cow's milk alone or in
conjunction with breast milk from the age of 3 months onwards, as compared with 25 per cent.
of artificially fed infants at the same age in the general population. The difference is not great
enough to be significant, but the records of other observers have shown that non-pulmonary
tuberculosis in children is certainly more frequent among those who have been fed on cow's milk
from an early age.