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77
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
Consumption or Tuberculosis.
Consumption is an infectious and preventible disease caused
by the inhalation of dust containing the microbes from the dried
spit or phlegm of consumptive persons, which phlegm contains
myriads of those microbes. With a view of preventing the spread
of Consumption or other Tubercular Diseases, the Medical Officer
of Health for the Borough recommends the following precautions:—
1.—The expectoration should never be allowed to get dry.
The patient should not spit on the floors of a house, but either into
pieces of rag or paper, which should at once be burned, or into a
small vessel containing water. This vessel should be emptied into
the drain outside the house once a day, and then scalded and recharged
with water.
2.—The same precautions should be observed in a workshop
as at home.
3.—No one should spit on the ground outside any building or
in a public conveyance.
4.—There is, however, little risk of contracting the disease
from the breath of consumptives, who may be closely attended
upon by healthy persons.
5.—The rooms occupied by a consumptive person should be
kept well ventilated and well lighted, as SUNLIGHT and
FRESH AIR are the greatest enemies of infection.
6.—WET cleansing of rooms, particularly of bedrooms
occupied by sick persons, should be substituted for "dusting" and
sweeping. The room occupied by the patient will be cleansed
and disinfected by the Sanitary Authority on application.
7.—In case of death the house will be disinfected by the
Sanitary Authority if this is desired. A new tenant should not
enter a house previously occupied by a consumptive person until
such house has been thoroughly disinfected and cleansed
8.—Amongst the agencies which act powerfully in causing
consumption are damp dwellings and workshops, overcrowding,
defective ventilation, and alcoholic excess. These should be
avoided.
9.—Cows are very subject to Tuberculosis, and the disease
may be contracted by young children (among whom consumption