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26 TUBERCULOUS DISEASES.
It must be remembered that 17 of the deaths recorded during the year occurred in public
institutions, and it may reasonably be supposed that the majority of the deceased, whose
cases were not included in the above calculations, lived under the worse and not the better
conditions of life.
Of the 146 cases accepted as pulmonary consumption, 2 were reported as recovered
(" arrested ") before the end of the year, 6 patients were lost sight of by removal, and 25
died, leaving 113 survivors. To these have to be added 50 survivors remaining from the
period 1903-07, making a total of 163 persons (85 males and 78 females) known to the
Department at the beginning of the current year as suffering from "consumption " in various
stages. The occupations of these persons are given in the second of the tables of occupations
(See page 24).
Action taken.—Every case reported and every death formed the subject of special enquiry
by the Women Inspectors. Disinfection is offered after a death at home, and generally
accepted, but there is no power to compel disinfection, no matter how necessary it may be
thought to be. Disinfection is also effected when possible after removal of a patient.
After notification advice is given as to precautions to be observed, and as to the best
method of living, etc. Frequent communications are addressed to the medical practitioners
in charge of the patients to learn what rules they desire their patients to adopt, and to
ascertain whether the cases are in need of and suitable for treatment in sanatoria or country.
In the last direction the help of the local Health Society and Committees of the
Invalid Children's Aid Association and Charity Organisation Society has been sought. The
Charity Organisation Society has given material relief in suitable cases. Twenty-one adult
and 20 children patients were sent away to sanatoria or country through the co-operation of
the agencies mentioned. In the majority of the cases the results were satisfactory, but
certain patients refused to remain a sufficiently long time under treatment to obtain its full
benefit. Records of all cases are in the possession of the Department.
The Women Inspectors included in their reports on the year's work accounts of special
cases of great interest—many illustrating the infectious character of " consumption." The
following histories are selected as the two most interesting recorded.
H. E., aet. 24 ; C. E., aet. 21. Enquiries following the death of H. E. in November elicited
a history of consumption first in C. E. " in early spring of the year," and two months later in
H. E. They attended Brompton Hospital as out-patients, and were advised to go to
sanatorium. Unable to obtain the necessary letters, they both became rapidly worse. C. E.
died in December, five weeks after his brother. The E. family occupied the ground floor rooms
of the house. In December, 1907, A. B., a consumptive, died in the back bedroom on the same
floor ; I. B. and — B. (daughter and wife of A. B.) were known (in December last) to be ill with
the same disease, but had then moved to another house. M. J., another consumptive, died in
January, 1908, on the second floor of the house, and — T., a former occupant of the same floor,
had a " spot on her lung," and is suspected to be consumptive.
The house was a clean one of recent construction, not overcrowded, but there were slight
evidences of dampness and the drains were found to be defective.
M. B., aet. 20, had pleurisy some four years ago, and had been under medical treatment off
and on ever since. There was a family history of consumption. Last year she was recommended
for admission to Brompton Hospital, but refused on account of her husband. Home sanatorium
treatment was undertaken, the windows of the rooms (top floor) being kept open (full, day;
half, night) from February onwards. Proper nourishment was obtainable, and the patient
spent part of each day in Kensington Gardens. She made good progress up to last autumn,
when she was lost sight of through removal from the Borough.