View report page

141
Judging from the deaths from Consumption, which numbered 52,
there must have been, at least, some 300 sufferers from the disease in
the Borough during the year, and of those only 91 were notified under
the voluntary system and the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations
of 1908-1911, combined.
As I have so frequently pointed out in previous reports, the
clamant need for the isolation of the advanced cases of this disease
amongst poor people was demonstrated in many cases which were
notified in Stoke Newington during last year. Although the Workhouse
Infirmary plays an important part in providing isolation of this
sort, it, of course, only partially meets the needs. At the present
time, in the great majority of cases, we find it impossible to get
advanced sufferers from surroundings which are bad for themselves
and highly dangerous to their families. There are no Institutions
available for these people, and a proportion of them prefer to die
in their squalid surroundings than enter a Poor Law Institution. So
long as these potent sources of infection continue to exist in our midst,
so long must the evil remain. We are spending large sums in the cure
of early cases, but we neglect the most obvious preventive measure.
The disease generally begins in an insidious manner, and the
working man does not give up his work or even consult a medical
man on account of these early symptoms. He has no money to spend
on medical advice for slight ailments; and as he has a family to support,
he fights against the disease so long as he is physically capable
oif doing so: meanwhile the disease reaches a stage at which a cure
is almost impossible or in which sanatorium treatment (if available)
cannot be expected to have a permanently good result. Consumption
is as deadly as it is amongst the poor because in most cases the
disease is well advanced before a proper remedy is sought.
It must be realised that a proportion of the approximately 300
sufferers in Stoke Newington are disseminating infection. In the
earlier stages of the disease there is relatively little danger of conveying
infection, but later the danger is very considerable, unless the
D2