View report page

70
want of light and air; and a jeweller of the effect of his stooping position in
a badly ventilated room.
In four cases babies were found boarded-out with, or adopted by, consumptive
patients, and efforts were made to remove these infants from the
infected surroundings. Perhaps the most hopeless family visited was one in
which out of twenty-five children, thirteen had died, and most of those
remaining at home appeared to be tuberculous. There is greater readiness to
take reasonable precautions for the avoidance of infection, but such precautions
as the separate room, and even the separate bed, are beyond the means of most
of our poor patients. Some attempt was made to effect segregation by
arranging the sleepers head to feet in the same bed.
In two cases children sent up as suspects to the Dispensary were found to
be suffering only from ill-health, resulting from pediculosis capitis. It is not
generally recognised by the mothers that actual ill-health results from dirty
and unwholesome conditions of this kind, and our visitors are careful to explain
this to the mothers visited.
In many cases the patients have been delicate from childhood, or from
early infancy.
Some patients retard their possible improvement, and endanger their families
by leaving Infirmary or Hospital too soon, or by lack of perseverance as outdoor
patients.
Some who would remain away indefinitely, in hope of cure, return home to
die when hope is no longer possible.
In 95 cases it was stated that no previous case of tuberculosis had occurred
in the family. In 116 cases previous instances of the disease had occurred, or
existed, in the families of the notified patients.
The Dispensary.
This Institution has been of enormous value. It is impossible to speak
too warmly of the ready co-operation, both of the Committee and of the Staff,
with the work of the Public Health Department, or of the consideration shown
to every patient and coutact sent. The usefulness of alliance with the General
Dispensary is continually apparent, for, on the one hand, the possession of
tuberculosis by no means connotes the lack of every other physical ill, and, on
the other hand, the general patients are a hunting ground for the special
tuberculosis work. We have sent contacts and suspects in fair numbers,
although not to the extent originally contemplated, and we find a very pleasing
readiness to take advantage of help which involves neither label nor stigma.
Owing to lack of funds, and to various delays and impediments, less has been
done than was hoped and expected in the earlier days of our alliance, but even
under all these difficulties, it has been evident that the Dispensary is one of
the most valuable adjuncts to Public Health work which could possibly be
desired.