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116
APPENDIX.
BATTERSEA TUBERCULOSIS DISPENSARY.
ANNUAL REPORT, 1929.
To the Medical Officer of Health.
TUBERCULOSIS.
I beg to report on the work carried out at the Tuberculosis
Dispensary for the year ending 31st December 1929. During the
year the personnel of the Staff remained the same as for the previous
twelve months. An Artificial Light Department was established
at Southlands during the year and treatment by artificial light
commenced in November. This form of treatment is given to
patients attending the Tuberculosis Dispensary who are suffering
from non-pulmonary Tuberculosis and to children who are attending
the Council's Maternity and Child Welfare clinics and who are
recommended by the Medical Officers in charge of those clinics.
The Department has not been opened sufficiently long to enable
an opinion to be expressed as to the results of such treatment.
It is not intended that treatment by artificial light should be offered
as an alternative to institutional treatment in cases of non-pulmonary
Tuberculosis but rather that it should be used in cases where
institutional treatment is not considered essential, e.g., in cases with
small sinuses from enlarged tuberculous glands and in cases with
small patches of Lupus, &c.
The routine work of the Dispensary has been carried on as
in previous years. The Dispensary continues to act as a centre
for diagnosis and as a clearing house rather than as a centre for
treatment. The desirability of the early recognition of Tuberculosis
both from the point of view of treatment and prevention has been
stressed in previous reports but, unfortunately, it is found that a
large number of the patients who attend the Dispensary for the
first time are suffering from pulmonary Tuberculosis in a more
or less advanced form. Such cases do not derive the greatest
benefit from sanatorium treatment and it is idle to hope for
permanent arrest of the disease in the majority of such cases as a
result of institutional treatment. Moreover, no effective measures
for the prevention of the spread of infection can be instituted until
the case comes to the knowledge of the Public Health Department.
I am of the opinion that the main cause of the failure to find the
early case of pulmonary Tuberculosis rests with the patient himself
who, owing to the slight discomfort caused by the disease in its