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178
1911]
publish, and distribute literature such as placards, handbills, leaflets, suitable
summaries of information and instructions respecting the disease, and the
precautions to be taken against its spread. The Council, therefore, possess
powers full, ample and complete with which to deal with the disease ? Why were
they given? to be used or not to be used? To be treated as of no consequence
in dealing with the disease, and, therefore, to be lightly brushed aside, or to be
considered of great value? The Medical Officer of Health does not for a
moment doubt that each Councillor's reason will suggest the right answer; and,
indeed, he firmly believes that all are of opinion that these orders are the
testament of the Government in the campaign against tuberculosis ; and that
the authorities who do not use them will justly deserve to have their powers
taken from them and passed on to hands who will be pleased to enforce them,
so that the lives of many men, women and children may not be jeopardised,
and that protection from the disease may be afforded to many thousands more.
The Medical Officer of Health knows that hitherto there has been reluctance
to spend money in this direction, but the Council should recollect, and the
words are those of the greatest of Greeks (one of whose plays was recently
performed in London) written over two thousand years ago:—
Though a man be wise,
It is no shame for him to live and learn,
And not to stretch a course too far.
Much has happened in the course of a few years ; therefore those arguments
on which the conclusions were based do not avail to-day.
Thus we see that the issue of these regulations is one more step in the
prevention of tuberculosis. Indeed, at the present moment owing to the compulsory
notification of the disease by private medical practitioners all the
machinery necessary to enable the Council to become acquainted with the
disease has been provided by the Government. There is only wanting, to
complete the whole, means of instructing, treating, and isolating such cases
according to their requirements. The latter will soon be provided under the
National Insurance Act of 1910, so that there is every prospect that before
long Anti-tuberculous Dispensaries and Sanatoria will be available for these
patients. That the prevention of the disease is one of national importance,
and also that in Islington it is not of less local importance, may be gathered
from the facts which are briefly set out below. One has but to read them to
understand that tuberculosis is, indeed, a disease which demands all our efforts,
advisory, physical and monetary, to prevent, for it is indeed a blot on the fair