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67
Contacts.
All contacts are invited to attend for examination at the Tuberculosis
Dispensary.
Fifty-nine contacts, viz., 23 adults and 36 children under fifteen years of
age, responded to this invitation and were examined for the first time during the
year 1932. Of these, three adults and one child were found to be definitely suffering
from tuberculosis. Fifty-two were definitely diagnosed as not suffering from the
disease. In three the diagnosis was not completed at the end of the year. The
routine examination of contacts is desirable as a means of discovering not only
cases of tuberculosis in early stages of infection but also advanced and infective
cases which may be disseminating infection although remaining undiscovered and
untreated.
Arrangements were continued during the year for co-operation with the
school medical service to ensure that no contacts of school age remain
unexamined; if such examination cannot be carried out at the Dispensary the
School Medical Officers are notified so that the examination may be carried out at
the school. Information as to the results of such examinations, whether at the
Dispensary or the schools, is interchanged as necessary.
Prevention of Spitting.
The necessity for the prevention of spitting, with a view to minimising the
spread of tuberculosis, has been emphasised by the issue of warning cards on the
subject. These have been exhibited in the various buildings in the control of the
Council, also in common lodging houses, and in the workrooms of a number of
large firms in the Borough. In addition specially designed opal plates have been
placed on the Council buildings. They ask people not to spit and so prevent
not only tuberculosis, but pneumonia and other diseases the germs of which are
carried in the mouth and nose. It is very conceivable that such a disease as
encephalitis lethargica is spread in this way in towns.
Deaths from Tuberculosis.
The number of deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis during the year was
34, a death rate of 0.93 per thousand. There were also four deaths from other
forms of tuberculosis, a rate of 0.11 per thousand.