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35
During the year the London County Council has issued a bye-law
directed against the dangerous and disgusting habit of spitting. The
bye-law is undoubtedly doing good, although I have not yet heard
of an instance in which a breach of the bye-law has been followed by
the conviction and fine of the offender; but to what an extent this
promiscuous spitting is a habit, and nothing else, is sufficiently evidenced
by anyone who at the present time rides in our 'buses, tramcars, and railway
carriages, and compares the state of the floors with that which
obtained only a few months back.
London is at the present time the worst provided with sanatoria
of all large towns in the kingdom, whereas, at the same time, the
demands for treatment of consumption cases in these institutions are
overwhelming. The treatment of early cases and the isolation of
dangerous cases necessarily imply the provision of some accommodation
for these patients. The existing consumption hospitals and the
Poor Law infirmaries do not provide nearly enough accommodation,
even if they limited admission to patients from London. It is at present
by no means an unusual thing for cases of consumption in Stoke
Newington, which urgently require isolation and sanatorium treatment,
to have to wait many months before they are able to obtain admission
into one of these institutions.
Sanatoria for the poorer class of the community within easy reach
of London hardly exist, and more accommodation is urgently needed
for the metropolis, both for the treatment of early cases and for the
isolation of advanced cases. It has been suggested, and there are
obvious reasons for the suggestion, that if sanatoria for consumptives
are to be provided for London as a whole, the Metropolitan Asylums
Board is the proper body to provide and control such institutions.
The value of sanatoria, however, must not be exaggerated; doubtless
they are an essential part of any scheme dealing with the scourge of
tuberculosis, but it is by improving the conditions of life and the
dwellings of the poorer section of the community that we shall achieve
most in our crusade against the disease.