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the individual with greater resistance and to teach him how to maintain that
resistance. A fifth proposition follows therefore: (5) that sanatoria, hospitals
or parts of hospitals, and homes arc required for incipient, pronounced, and advanced
or incurable cases, respectively, of consumption.
As to the realisation of these measures—The London County Council in May,
1903, made a By-law for the Good Rule and Government of the County of
London, against spitting to the following effect:—No person shall spit on the
floor, side, or wall of any public carriage, or of any public hall, public waiting
room, or place of public entertainment, whether admission thereto be obtained
upon payment or not.
Any person who shall offend against this by-law shall be liable for each
offence to a fine not exceeding forty shillings.
This by-law it appears is enforceable by the police under section 16 of the
Local Government Act, 1888, and section 23 of the Municipal Corporations
Act, 1882.
There is some prospect that the Metropolitan Asylums Board may utilise
the unused hospitals at Darenth as sanatoria for incipient cases of consumption
in the Metropolis. Hospitals and Infirmaries are setting apart special wards
for advanced cases of consumption. Poor law infirmaries furnish homes for
the dying amongst the very poor. And philanthropists are endeavouring to
provide more suitable employment for consumptives cured, or permanently or
temporarily restored to health.
It remains for the Borough Councils to provide bacteriological diagnostic
tests for the sputum of suspected consumptives, to adopt voluntary notification
with a view to making it obligatory, and to disinfect when required.
GLANDERS.
During the year, Glanders amongst horses was a matter of serious consideration
on account of the fact that the water troughs in St. Pancras and Stepney
were not reopened because the spread of the disease was not abating. The
Board of Agriculture was petitioned to appoint a Departmental Committee to
conduct further investigations for the purpose of ascertaining the communicability
of the infection of Glanders at water troughs by glandered horses,
apparently healthy, of doubtful appearance, and distinctly unhealthy, and the
proportionate chances of risks of infection from each class.