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23
PHTHISIS OR CONSUMPTION.
The number of deaths from Phthisis during the year was 169, equivalent to a death-rate of
2.86 per 1,000. Of these 96 belonged to Bloomsbury and St. Giles, or a death rate of 3'07 per 1,000
and 73 to the Holborn Sub-district or a rate of 2.62 per 1,000.
The corresponding rate for London was 1.66.
In March, 1901, I made the following Report on the
PREVENTION OF CONSUMPTION.
Although Sanitary improvements have already done much, there are still about 60,000 deaths
annually in England and Wales from Consumption and other forms of tuberculosis. In London
there were in 1899, 8,510 deaths from Consumption alone. The corrected annual average of the
preceding ten years was 8,453, or rather less. It has been estimated that in any year there are five
times as many persons as the deaths that are suffering from the disease.
It is known that this terrible waste of life with all the protracted suffering attending it, and
the distress, moral and material which it involves, is in great measure preventable.
Years ago Farr gave £156 as the average value of each human life in England. The value
in London is now probably more than £200. Taking it at this figure, the loss to London during the
past ten years by deaths from all forms of tuberculosis may be estimated at more than £20,000,000
(twenty million pounds).
In addition therefore to humanitarian reasons there are powerful financial and economic reasons
for its prevention.
VOLUNTARY NOTIFICATION.
In order that preventive measures may be carried out by the Council in individual cases, the
Council must have information of their existence.
Voluntary notification was begun in the City of New York, March 1st, 1894, and in January,
1897, the notification was made compulsory. In New York the following numbers of cases of
consumption were notified voluntarily :—
In 1894 4,166 cases.
In 1895 5,824 cases.
In 1896 8,334 cases.
So that the system cannot be said to be impracticable or unsuccessful.
In England it has only recently been adopted in a few towns. In Manchester, Brighton and
Sheffield it has been attended with successful results. It has also been recently adopted in the
adjoining Borough of Einsbury. I have information of sixteen towns in England where voluntary
notification is now practised, but in about half of them only within the past twelve months. In those
towns in which no fees have been allowed, it has naturally not been a success.
I therefore think that it is desirable for your Council to adopt this system of voluntary
notification and the same fees paid as for notifiable diseases.
DISINFECTION OF ROOMS.
Many experiments have proved that the dust of rooms in which a consumptive person has been
living is generally infected with the germs of tuberculosis. Booms occupied by consumptives ought
therefore to be cleansed at least once a week by using wet dusters and wet tea leaves or sawdust.
When the consumptive removes to a sanatorium, hospital, or other premises, or dies, the room ought
to be thoroughly disinfected as after other infectious diseases.