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secure similar help through the Unemployment Assistance Board
for those who are fit for work but unemployed, it will be seen
that remedies for actual distress are becoming more comprehensive
and progressive, so that the evolution of a scheme from which
no one is omitted appears to be in the realm of practical politics.
As far as housing is concerned, there has been a definite
advance, but the position is still far from satisfactory. In order
to secure improved accommodation for patients, it is in the main
necessary still to produce evidence of overcrowding, which is
measured by certain rather rigid criteria. It seems a pity that
a different standard of overcrowding could not be set up for the
tuberculous from that which obtains for the healthy. However,
many families have been rehoused, and with the continued
clearance of slum areas and insanitary buildings, it is now
comparatively rare to meet with the deplorable conditions that
were not uncommon ten or fifteen years ago.
In an earlier paragraph of this report I mentioned the fact
that children of school age were less susceptible to tuberculosis,
at any rate in its severer pulmonary forms, than those of other
groups. In spite of this, there is much that needs to be done for
them, and the value of an open-air school in which first class
teaching facilities together with skilled medical and nursinp
supervision are available, is amply demonstrated by the success
of the school at Stormont House. This admits cases from Stoke
Newington and the part of Hackney in this dispensary area, and
continues to show th° excellent results that have been characteristic
of it since it was first opened.
I am greatly indebted to the medical and surgical staff of the
Metropolitan Hospital, and in particular to Mr. Livingstone of
the Ear, Nose, and Throat Department, and to Dr. Loughborough
of the X-Ray Department, for seeing cases referred by me. It
is becoming more than ever necessary for a Tuberculosis Officer
to be able to secure a satisfactory X-Ray film and an expert report,
especially on persons seen for the first time. It is now universally
acknowledged that a diagnosis cannot always be made on clinical
examination alone, and not only doctors but also patients realise
that investigation cannot be complete without the help of
radiology, which is freely available in the out-patient departments
of chest hospitals, and which must now be made equally available
to a tuberculosis dispensary, if it is to maintain its position as
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