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Borough. On the part of the Council it was stated that the interests
and the dignity of the medical man in attendance would be carefully
respected. Towards the end of the Conference the following
resolutions were unanimously adopted:—
1.—In the voluntary notification of Phthisis it is desirable in all
cases in which a medical man is iu attendance that the
consent of the patient or friends be obtained to the
notification before it is made.
2.—It is not desirable or necessary that duplicate notifications
be received within six months of the original one unless
the patient has changed residence in the meanwhile.
3.—That the examination of sputum in morning and other
coughs will be of service to medical men in the Borough
if facilities be given for such examination.
4.—It is advisable that any literature the Council of the Borough
may wish to be placed in the hands of the patient or friends
be handed or addressed to the medical man in attendance.
Arrangements have been made for examining without fee
specimens of sputum from patients, the nature of whose illness
is doubtful, and it is desirable that this provision should be utilised
in all such cases.
Believe me,
Faithfully yours,
G. B. MILLSON,
Medical Officer of Health.
Dr
REPORT READ AT CONFERENCE.
Mr. Mayor, Councillors, and Gentlemen,
The decision arrived at more than a year ago by the Southwark
Council to inaugurate a system of voluntary notification of Phthisis
was not, owing to the outbreak of Small-pox which engrossed all our
attention, acted upon with the energy that it deserved.
The importance of the subject to a Borough such as Southwark,
with its enormous amount of overcrowdedness and casual workers,
cannot be over-estimated when it is considered that some 70,000 persons
die every year from Phthisis in this country, and that considerably
more than a quarter of a million persons are affected by it.