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(b) THE SEGREGATION OF CONSUMPTION.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease assuming many forms, of which the
most readily spread is the pulmonary. Pulmonary tuberculosis may be
regarded from either a curative or a preventive point of view, and these points
are at the opposite ends of the chain of events. The stages of pulmonary
tuberculosis are incipient, pronounced, advanced, and far advanced. On the
one hand, for curative purposes it is most important to commence at the
incipient stage, and hence the growing popularity of Sanatoriums. On the
other hand, for preventive purposes it is most important to commence at the
far advanced stage, as this stage is the most infectious. This is the stage at
which segregation is of the utmost value, and segregation or isolation may be
obtained either by providing a bed room specially set apart for the patient at
home, or by removing the patient to a special institution away from home.
The Poor Law Infirmaries receive a considerable number of advanced and far
advanced cases. The Metropolitan Asylums Board has declined to become
the Sanatorium Authority for the Metropolis on account of the probable
expense involved in approaching the subject from a curative point ot view.
This seems to contemplate the power of sending an unlimited number of cases
"to the Board's Sanatoriums, as in other infectious diseases. But if the
Metropolitan Asylums Board were to decline to take cases directly into their
Sanatoriums, and could be pursuaded to undertake to relieve the Infirmaries