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(10) That whilst the deaths in London in 1904 from the
diseases admissible to the Board's hospitals (small-pox,
scarlet fever, diphtheria and fever) aggregated only 1,415,
of which 1,094 were due to scarlet fever and diphtheria
(upwards of 90 per cent. being deaths of children under the
age of five years), the deaths from pulmonary phthisis
(consumption) alone, and exclusive of all other tubercular
diseases, were 7,738 in number, and of these a vast proportion
were deaths of adult men and women (more especially
men in the prime of life).
(11) That the money value to the community of the lives
lost every year from this preventable and curable disease is
enormous, and immensely transcends any possible cost to
the rates by sanatorium provision.
The proceedings suggested by the Metropolitan Asylums Board
were—
(1) That an Order of the Local Government Board be
obtained to make Section 5 of the Metropolitan Poor Act,
1867, applicable to the case of "poor persons" suffering
from pulmonory phthisis (consumption); and, if necessary,
(2) That an Act be obtained to make the provisions of
Section 80 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891,
applicable to pulmonary phthisis (consumption) as if such
disease were therein mentioned as well as "fever, small pox,
or diphtheria."
The General Purposes Committee of the Metropolitan Asylums
Board asked for any observations of the Council on these proposals.
The Council had already adopted resolutions urging the Metropolitan
Asylums Board to take the necessary steps for the provision
of sanatoria for consumptives, and, notwithstanding the expenditure
involved, the Public Health and Housing Committee were of