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certainly do not appreciate the magnitude of the social problems
which will also have to be solved, foremost of which is that of
poverty. Our efforts will in the future, as in the past, reduce
the prevalence of the disease considerably, but that the standard
of living (and often of working) of the poorer section of the
community is ever likely to reach such a high uniform level as
to lead to a total eradication of the seeds of the disease, is
difficult indeed to believe.
Seventy-nine of the notified cases were recorded as insured
under the Insurance Act.
Judging from the deaths from Consumption, which numbered
47, there must have been, at least, 200 sufferers from the
disease in the Borough during the year, and of those 142 were
notified.
On February 1st, 1913, the Notification and Treatment of
Tuberculosis Order, 1912, came into operation. Every medical
practitioner is now required to notify to the Medical Officer of
Health of the sanitary area in which the patient lives any case
of Tuberculosis which he diagnoses. All forms of the disease
have to be notified, except cases which are diagnosed solely from
tests with Tuberculin.
In the absence of sufficient provision to isolate or even to
adequately supervise the advanced cases which are notified to
me, the infection spreads in some of the homes of Stoke Newington,
and this will remain so until more comprehensive measures
are adopted.
It is obvious that the project of dealing with Consumption on
both the preventative and curative side, on anything approaching
a useful scale, would entail a cost which would represent a considerable
increase upon the local rates. But this difficulty has
been partly met, so far as the provision of Institutions is concerned,
by a Government grant of one and a-half million pounds.
The special difficulties in the way of the provision of a Tuberculosis
Dispensary in Stoke Newington are considerable, and they
form a good argument in favour of the County Council drawing
up a scheme which meets the needs of the Metropolis as a whole,