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APPENDIX.
BATTERSEA TUBERCULOSIS DISPENSARY.
Annual Report, 1928.
To the Medical Officer of Health.
I herewith submit a report on the work of the Borough Tuberculosis
Dispensary for the year 1928.
In June, 1928, the premises acquired by the Council at
"Southlands," High Street, part of which was adapted as a new
Tuberculosis Dispensary, were occupied. The removal from the
old Dispensary premises at 179 Battersea Bridge Road, where the
Dispensary had been since its inception in 1911, was carried out
with expedition and with very little dislocation of the ordinary
Dispensary work. For many years the work has been carried
on with difficulty owing to the limited accommodation and the
unsuitability for the purpose of the old building, and the new
premises have proved to be very satisfactory and have been much
appreciated both by the staff and by the patients.
During the year under review the staff of the Dispensary
has remained unchanged. The ordinary routine work of the
Dispensary has been continued in the usual way. The closest
co-operation is maintained with the General Practitioners in the
area and such assistance as the Dispensary is able to provide is
at their disposal. Each year the number of sputum examinations
made on behalf of General Practitioners increases, and reports are
sent to them on their patients who are discharged after a period
of Institutional treatment under the London County Council's
Tuberculosis Scheme. The value of the early diagnosis of Tuberculosis
cannot be over-estimated, both from the point of view of
treatment and prevention of infection, and one of the main duties
of the Tuberculosis Dispensary is to find the disease at as early a
stage as possible. The co-operation of the General Practitioner
in this direction is all-important, as it is mainly through him that
patients attend the Dispensary. No effort is spared to arrive at
a definite diagnosis in each patient as soon as possible after a period
of intensive observation. There is no doubt that as the co-operation
between the General Practitioners and the Dispensary has become
closer, so cases of Pulmonary Tuberculosis have been found at an
earlier stage of the disease than was the case several years ago.
Fewer patients attend the Tuberculosis Dispensary now for the
first time with signs of advanced Tuberculosis. At the same time
it must be admitted that the majority of the patients who attend
the Dispensary for the first time are not really suffering from
Tuberculosis in an early stage. They are intermediate cases and
have had symptoms of chest trouble for many months before their
first attendance. I am of the opinion that the insidious nature